Cara Consuegra tried not to focus too intently on the faces in the crowd during the news conference at which she was introduced as Marquette women's basketball coach Thursday in a room at the school's Alumni Memorial Union.

The emotions of being back on the campus where she spent seven seasons as an assistant coach were already overwhelming. Staring at those who helped her return as head coach would have been too overwhelming.

In the front row were Consuegra's husband, an MU graduate, and their two sons decked out in Golden Eagles gear. Along the perimeter of the room were Terri Mitchell, the former MU head coach who hired Consuegra as an assistant, and Erin Monfre, who lauded Consuegra for helping her as a player and person during Monfre's time as a standout for the Golden Eagles.

"This is really special to me, as you know, to stand up here and say that I'm your head women's basketball coach," Consuegra said. "Marquette is not a job to us.

"I've been so fortunate to have been here before. As you know, my husband is an alum. His siblings are alums. Our family is here. I have so many family and friends here that I can't look at or I won't get through my remarks.

"We have former players here that were part of this. That I coached. That played here before I was here. This university is special. This community is special. And we are just so thrilled to be back here to be able to pour into this community and this university."

Terri Mitchell knew Cara Consuegra was a future head coach

Consuegra comes to MU after 13 seasons as head coach at Charlotte. But before that, she was an assistant for Mitchell from 2004-11.

Mitchell hired Consuegra on the recommendation of Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder. Consuegra was a standout guard for the Hawkeyes from 1997-2001.

"Probably got a call just saying, hey, she's great," Mitchell said. "She has a great basketball mind. I knew her because we played against them. You just get that thumbs-up from somebody else and it doesn't take very long when you interview her that she's special."

It also didn't take long for Mitchell to see that Consuegra was a future head coach. She was hired by Charlotte at just 32 years old.

"I would just watch her command the room," Mitchell said. "I would let her do the offensive stuff. I was very involved in the defense.

"Let her organize the offense, special situations. And she just had a command. The players responded to her. They knew when she spoke that she meant business. But she also had a soft side, put her arm around them when they needed that."

Former Marquette players like Erin Monfre give endorsement

Consuegra's phone has been blowing up with calls and messages since the news of her hiring broke. Several of them came from former MU players.

"I got a great voicemail from Angel Robinson, one of the greats to play here," Consuegra said. "And it was so explicit that I couldn't tell you what it said. If anyone knows Angel, they would understand. So she was screaming in my phone."

Monfre, who played at MU from 2005-09 and works as a personal trainer in Milwaukee, knew she had to be in attendance when Consuegra was introduced.

"For me to be here 15 years later speaks volumes on the impact she had on me as a female, as someone growing into who I was becoming as an adult, and as a player," Monfre said. "Cara wasn't even my specific position coach; she worked with point guards and I was a wing. I was a shooting guard.

"She still cared about me. She cared about everyone on the team as a whole. And made that effort. She connects with us as people first and players second. Back in my career, those four years I dealt with my mom's cancer diagnosis and the passing of that. I went to her office several times on harder days and she was there."

Bill Scholl likes fit with Cara Consuegra

Consuegra's time with the Golden Eagles predated MU President Michael Lovell and athletic director Bill Scholl, who were part of the coaching search to replace Megan Duffy along with deputy athletic director Mike Broeker and executive associate athletic director Sarah Bobert.

"She came up to the top of our list as someone we wanted to talk to," Lovell said. "We looked at her history and then we realized that she had spent a good deal of time here and been under Terri and coached some of our best players."

Scholl had heard of Consuegra but they had never met until the interview process.

"I love the fact that she's had success over a sustained period of time," Scholl said. "It's not two or three years here. I think it was a much safer bet that she knows how to build it and sustain it for a period of time.

"Beyond that, it was the personal characteristics. She's so authentic. She's so aligned with what Marquette is all about. That really came out. Maybe she had some home-court advantage because she had been here for seven years. But she used it to her advantage."

So ... what about the Golden Eagles' roster?

The six players remaining on the Golden Eagles' roster sat in the front row. There are many spots for Consuegra to fill.

"Well, it's easier than it used to be because there's the transfer portal as most people probably know in here," Consuegra said. "We'll certainly be active in there to determine who could be the best fit for us as we move forward, as we continue to evaluate the young women that are on our team right now.

"Again, we want to bring in the best players we can bring but we want to bring in the right people as well. It's really important the foundation that we set in our first year. That we're setting the culture to propel us forward."

What kind of style will the Golden Eagles play?

Consuegra has a very specific vision of how she wants her teams to look at MU.

"For me, I'm a hard-nosed worker," she said. "So those are the type of players I want.

"My mantra is to play with heart. And I want players that are going to be out giving everything they have for this university, for having Marquette across their chest. And that's going hard, playing hard, every loose ball will be ours. Those types of things. Things you hear coaches say that are cliched but they are true for me.

"I want our fans to be able to come out and say, man, we watched those young women play and they just played so hard for us. That's what matters to me."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Cara Consuegra introduced as Marquette women's basketball head coach