Johnson Leads Hoos Into Homestretch

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Kymora Johnson turned her coach’s dream into reality, and that helped the University of Virginia women’s basketball team secure a much-needed victory.

At a practice last week, head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton told Johnson about a dream she’d had in which the sophomore point guard recorded a triple-double—27 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists—against ACC rival Pittsburgh.

“So it’s kind of cool to see that come to life,” Johnson said Tuesday at John Paul Jones Arena, where she joined Agugua-Hamilton for a media availability.

The details didn’t align perfectly, but Johnson finished with 20 points, 11 rebounds and a career-best 11 assists Sunday in the Cavaliers’ 80-67 win over the Panthers at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh. She’s one of only two players in program history to record a triple-double. The legendary Dawn Staley did so twice during the 1990-91 season.

For Johnson, a graduate of nearby St. Anne’s-Belfield School, to reach the milestone had been a goal “forever,” she said. “I’m just really blessed to be in good company. Dawn Staley, everybody knows who that is. Everyone, when you say her name, it’s like, oh, my gosh. But I’m just blessed to have this opportunity, blessed to be in the books, and blessed to have teammates who helped me achieve this feat.”

That Johnson made history surprised no one who follows the program. She had a sensational freshman year for the Wahoos, making the All-ACC second team, and she’s elevated her play this season.

Johnson has improved her shooting accuracy—from 41.3 to 44.8 percent on field goals, from 31.7 to 37.6 percent on 3-pointers, and from 81.3 to 88.5 percent on free throws. She credits her work in the gym, “getting reps on reps on reps … I don’t often get a lot of live defense when I’m just in the gym by myself, but I try to go as hard as I can, take good shots, take ones that I’m going to take in the game. And then just [shooting with] confidence, just knowing next shot’s going in.”

She smiled. “I think I had four air balls on Sunday, and Coach Mox just came to me and she was like, ‘You just got to keep shooting,’ and I did, and I hit another one.”

Johnson said she’s also improved as a leader. The Cavaliers were a senior-dominated team in 2023-24, so “I had to take on a bigger role this year,” Johnson said. “I think that the biggest thing for me was just finding my voice and finding a consistent voice, not just every now and then; just being a commanding presence.”

For the second straight season, Johnson leads Virginia in points, assists and steals. Moreover, only one Cavalier, 6-foot-4 Latasha Lattimore, has pulled down more boards than the 5-foot-7 Johnson this season.

“Especially in the Pitt game, I wasn’t scoring a lot at the beginning,” Johnson said, “and I was like, ‘Well, I’m gonna find something that’s working,’ and it was rebounding and assisting.”

Virginia (13-13 overall, 5-9 ACC) has four games left in the regular season, including two at JPJ. UVA hosts Cal (21-6, 9-5) at 7 p.m. Thursday and Stanford (13-12, 5-9) at 6 p.m. Sunday. (Stanford visits Virginia Tech on Thursday night.)

The Cavaliers are averaging 4,264 fans at home games this season, and Agugua-Hamilton said that support is much appreciated.

“They’ve been showing up and showing out no matter what the results are of the games, and we’ve been having great crowds,” said Agugua-Hamilton, who’s in her third season at UVA. “I think they’ve helped us get over the hump many times, even just coming to the radio show, coming to different events or speaking engagements, and our players are out there and touching the community too. They show up.

“So we’re just really proud of our fan base and really grateful for the support that they’ve given us, and we hope that they continue to show up these last couple games and continue to cheer us on to victory. Because we’re in a pretty good place now. I think our confidence is back and … our team morale and our camaraderie is in a good place. So we just need our fans to show up. Obviously we have some big ones coming up and we just appreciate all the love.”

The Hoos headed to Pittsburgh last weekend having dropped two straight games and six of their past seven. UVA players met twice ahead of the Pitt game, Johnson said. “At some point you get tired of losing, you get tired of doing the same thing over and over again, and we were kind of just like, ‘If we’re gonna do it, we got to do it now. Less talking, more action.’ ”

Johnson wasn’t UVA’s only standout against Pitt. Reserve guard Casey Valenti-Paea contributed 12 points, and Lattimore recorded her ninth double-double of the season, scoring a career-high 30 points and grabbing 11 rebounds. Lattimore also blocked four shots.

For the season, Lattimore is second on the team in scoring (14.6 ppg) and first in rebounding (8.6 per game) and blocks (2.0 per game).

“She’s been huge for us this year,” Johnson said. “I knew it was coming. It was just a matter of time.”

Lattimore transferred to UVA last summer from another ACC school, Miami. Since then, “she’s grown so much as a person, as a player, teammate, friend,” Johnson said. “She’s really just started to connect to us a lot more. She comes to us for everything, we’ve really just gelled a lot more as a team, and I think that that’s kind of helped her find her confidence and find who she is as a player on the court.”

Injuries slowed Lattimore’s progress early in her college career, but she’s becoming a force for the Cavaliers. No. 35 has scored 23 points or more six times this season, and she’s attempted a team-high 122 free throws.

“She’s different,” Agugua-Hamilton said of Lattimore. “She’s 6-4, but she’s athletic. She can handle the ball. She can get to the rim.”

The coaches encourage Lattimore to make quick decisions with the ball, Agugua-Hamilton said, “because she is explosive, but sometimes she wants to kind of size up the defense and read, and then next thing you know, people are loading to the ball. So when she does that, when she catches, rips and goes, there’s really nobody that can keep up with her in the post-player position.”

For a UVA team that hopes to extend its season beyond the ACC tournament, this closing stretch will be crucial for them.

“The next game is always the most important game, for sure,” Agugua-Hamilton said, “but we also have to understand the bigger picture too … Really, it’s about us controlling our own destiny, so we approach every game, focus on that game, win that game, and then go to the next one. But I like where our mentality is right now and I like where our morale is right now.”

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