Catching Up With Coach Mox

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Her second season as the University of Virginia’s head women’s basketball coach ended March 24. About 10 weeks later, Amaka Agugua-Hamilton gave birth to her daughter, Nkiru.

Agugua-Hamilton and her husband, Billy Hamilton, also have a son, Eze, who was born in the spring of 2018. Back then, though, she was associate head coach at Michigan State, and her maternity leave was less stressful. For a head coach, blocking out professional responsibilities to focus on family can be challenging.

When Agugua-Hamilton was away from John Paul Jones Arena this summer, CJ Jones, who this week was promoted to associate head coach, oversaw the program.

“He stepped in and did a great job,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “But it’s hard, because you’re never off as a head coach. One, you’re constantly preparing and, two, people always need you, they need an answer, they need things. So I was just trying to fight through that. And I had a lot of [health] complications after I delivered her. It was pretty bad. And so I was trying to fight for my health, for my family and this program, but then also assume some of my responsibilities. So it was hard, being pulled in so many different directions, but I’m just happy I got healthy.”

The fall semester began this week at the University, and Agugua-Hamilton’s 2024-25 team convened for a meeting Tuesday at JPJ. The Cavaliers began workouts on Wednesday, looking to build on the foundation they laid over the summer.

Agugua-Hamilton, who’s known as Coach Mox, wasn’t at JPJ on a full-time basis this summer, but what she saw from her team pleased her.

“I feel like our culture’s in a great place and it’s thriving,” she said. “The camaraderie I’ve seen within the group, even just when I came in for the first practice, was great. So that’s the biggest thing. But then you know individually there’s some people that have been stepping up and shining, separating themselves from the group. We have a lot of talent.”

The Wahoos defeated four ACC opponents ranked in the top 20 last season. The Hoos finished 16-16 after losing in the second round of the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament.  Seven players from that team are back, including sophomore guard Kymora Johnson, who led the team in scoring, assists and steals in 2023-24. Virginia’s other veterans are seniors Taylor Lauterbach and Jillian Brown, juniors Paris Clark and Yonta Vaughn, and sophomores Olivia McGhee and Edessa Noyan.

Brown will sidelined this season while recovering from a torn ACL, but she’s expected to return in 2025-26. Lauterbach is the only Cavalier heading into her final season of eligibility.

The roster includes seven newcomers: transfers RyLee Grays (North Carolina), Hawa Doumbouya (Maryland), Casey Valenti-Paea (Long Beach State) and Latasha Lattimore (Miami, Fla.) and freshmen Breona Hurd, Kamryn Kitchen and Payton Dunbar.

Kitchen, who’s from Charlotte, N.C., and Dunbar, who’s from Narrows in Southwest Virginia, were high school juniors in 2023-24, but each decided to graduate a year early. They arrived on Grounds late this month, and the plan is for both to redshirt this season.

“Now, if they come in and they’re ready and they’re like, ‘Hey, Coach, I really want to play,’ then OK,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “But we have agreed that they will redshirt this season and play four years after that.”

Brown’s injury leaves the Cavaliers thin in the backcourt, but if Johnson, Clark, Vaughn, Valenti-Paea and McGhee stay healthy, Agugua-Hamilton said, the team should have enough guards. Lattimore (6-foot-4) and Hurd (6-foot-2) are post players, but each can slide out to the perimeter.

Injuries have marred Lattimore’s college career, but she’s healthy again, and she’s “very, very versatile,” Agugua-Hamilton said.

For Agugua-Hamilton, the biggest surprise of the summer was the play of Hurd, who’s from Waynesville, Mo.

“She’s a 4, but she has guard skills and she’s physical,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “She can score in the low post. She can rebound. She can block shots, all at 6-2, but then she can bring the ball up the court, too.

“She has a pretty shot. We knew that coming in. We’d recruited her since she was in ninth grade or something. We knew she was versatile, but what we weren’t sure was if it would translate quickly to this level. Her competition in high school wasn’t [elite], so we weren’t sure if she’d come here and feel like everybody was bigger, faster, stronger, but she is way more physical than I expected. The pace didn’t affect her like I thought it would, and so I’m excited about her. I think she has a really bright future.”

The same is true, Agugua-Hamilton said, for the 6-foot-2 McGhee, a Louisa County resident who arrived at UVA last year as a heralded recruit. McGhee had several memorable games, including a 22-point showing against Wake Forest, but she’s capable of more.

“Olivia had a huge jump this summer,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “I love how she looks, and she’s just so much more confident. She’s leading. She’s helping the freshmen acclimate. I just love the mental space that she’s in and where her game is physically. I think it’s gonna be a really good year for her. She can play multiple positions—obviously the 2 and the 3—but she could play the 4 a little bit, too.”

The only players listed as centers on the roster are Lauterbach and Doumbouya, each of whom stands 6-foot-7. But Agugua-Hamilton said Lattimore, Grays (6-foot-3) and Noyan (6-foot-3) can play the 5 as well.

“So we have a couple of options there,” Agugua-Hamilton said.

Noyan played for Sweden’s under-20 national team in two tournaments in Europe this summer. In Nordic U20 Championship, she averaged 13.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game. In the European U20 Championship in Lithuania, she averaged 8.4 points, 6.0 rebounds and 0.9 assists.

“She’s gotten better this summer,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “I love how she looks.”

In Johnson and Clark, the Hoos have two of the ACC’s most dynamic guards. A second-team all-conference selection in 2023-24, Johnson played the most minutes of any Cavalier. Virginia had a senior-dominated team, and Johnson, a graduate of nearby St. Anne’s-Belfield School, “had to learn her place as a freshman, find her voice, and now her leadership has gone through the roof,” Agugua-Hamilton.

“I think there’s more room to grow, of course, but she’s had a huge jump there, in being a commanding presence, always leading. She was one of our summer captains. So the leadership piece is going to take her over the top, I think, and that’s something that she’s focused on. And then some of her decision-making is gonna get better than it was last year, some of her shot selection and then just the efficiency. She was pretty efficient last year, stat-wise for a freshman, but that kid is very, very talented. I think at the end of the day, she could be one of those 50-40-90 kids: 50 percent from the field, 40 from the three, and 90 from the free-throw line. She’ll be in elite company if she can get that done.”

Clark, who transferred to UVA from Arizona after the 2022-23 academic year, started 26 games last season. She was third on the team in scoring and rebounding, second in steals, and fourth in blocked shots.

Offseason foot surgery kept Clark out of practice this summer, but she’s expected back on the court soon.

“I look forward to her being healthy,” Agugua-Hamilton said, “but I think, again, leadership is a piece that she wanted to get better at and has gotten better at. Maybe the injury was a blessing in disguise, because she was sidelined and all she had was her voice, and she stepped up big time. She’s defending the culture, helping instill it with the new kids, and just helping out during tough times in practice or workouts. She’s there encouraging her teammates, trying to get them over the hump, things like that. So if she can continue to do that, coupled with her actual physical game, she’s going to be really good. “

Vaughn and Valenti-Paea add experience and depth in the backcourt. Concussions limited Vaughn to 17 appearances last season, but she’s “been fully involved in postseason workouts and summer workouts,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “She looks great. Under myself, she’s the longest-tenured player here. She’s a junior this year and has been around so she understands everything, and she’s really stepping up leadership-wise. I really like how she’s approached the summer.”

Valenti-Paea began her college career at Buffalo before transferring to Long Beach State, where she started 32 games last season. She averaged 9.4 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 2.1 steals per game and shot 37.9 percent from 3-point range and 84.9 percent from the line.

“Casey is just so competitive,” Agugua-Hamitlon said. “That’s the No. 1 thing I love about her. She’s a culture kid. Just hard-nosed.  Defensively, she’s just very smart, plays angles right. You think you’re gonna get by her, and she cuts you off, she closes out, so I think she’s gonna definitely have an impact there, which is something that Jillian Brown did for us. And then Casey can really shoot it.”

UVA opens the season Nov. 4 against American at JPJ. The Cavaliers’ opening-night rotation has yet to be determined, but Agugua-Hamilton likes the direction of her program.

“We’ve got some kids that need to get acclimated to new positions,” she said. “We do a lot of things offensively, so they have to be able to, obviously retain all that information from different positions.. But I think that’ll be fine, that’s gonna come with time.

“We have so much versatility, and that’s probably the biggest thing. I love where we’re at, I love the talent we have, I love the camaraderie. It has to continue to grow. We missed out on some team-bonding activities and things like that because I was away when I had my child. So this preseason we’re going to really get back to the team bonding and just grow this group together.”

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