Hughey Brings Wealth of Experience to JPJ

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Friends for years, Amaka Agugua-Hamilton and Ron Hughey had never been colleagues until this spring. In early March, Hughey resigned as head women’s basketball coach at the University of Houston, and Agugua-Hamilton saw an opportunity.

With an opening to fill on her staff at the University of Virginia, where she’s heading into her fourth season as head coach, Agugua-Hamilton reached out to Hughey.

“On the first call,” Hughey recalled last week at John Paul Jones Arena, “the first thing she said was, ‘I need help defensively. I know you can recruit, but I need exactly what you bring defensively.’ ”

Hughey accepted the challenge and joined Agugua-Hamilton’s staff as an assistant coach in late March. After 11 seasons leading the program at Houston, he’s been reminded that life as an assistant has its benefits.

“You can sleep again,” Hughey said, laughing. “When I resigned, I slept for two days.”

At UVA, he’s part of a staff whose other members include associate head coach CJ Jones; assistant coaches Alysiah Bond, Tori Jankoska and Janko Popovic; director of scouting and player development Jackson Kenyon; and strength and conditioning coach Abby Sherard.

Hughey is a renowned recruiter, Agugua-Hamilton said on a recent Wahoo Central Podcast, “but then also on the defensive side of the ball, that’s always kind of been his staple. So he’s been bringing a lot of ideas and things to the table with defense in mind. But overall he’s a head coach. So when he sees something, he’s just like, ‘Hey, I used to do this way, or what about this?’ And that’s what you need as a head coach. You need somebody that continues to challenge your thought process and help you be better.”

Hughey, who was born and raised in Columbia, S.C., served as an assistant coach at South Carolina State, South Carolina, Central Florida, Rutgers, Texas and Florida State before taking over at Houston after the 2013-14 season.

In 11 seasons under Hughey, the Cougars posted a 140-195 overall record. They finished 5-25 in 2024-25, after which he stepped down. Among those who saluted Hughey was Kelvin Sampson, the head coach of Houston’s phenomenally successful men’s team.

“There’s not a better human being on this campus than Coach Ron Hughey,” Sampson said after Hughey announced his resignation. “[Hughey] went this year knowing that something good had to happen,” Sampson said, “but he’ll bounce back somewhere.”

UVA is fortunate to have Hughey, Agugua-Hamilton said. “He’s always been somebody that I admire, just the way that he champions women’s basketball and women in general. He has worked with a lot of legends. At Rutgers, he was at with Vivian Stringer, he was at Florida State with Sue [Semrau], he was at Texas with Gail [Goestenkors], but then also he had a long stint as a head coach at Houston. So he brings a lot of experience, a wealth of knowledge, but he’s just a really good guy … and he works. He’s a grinder. Obviously, I love people that grind, so he’s a welcome addition.”

Hughey and his wife, Shae, have a 7-year-old son, Hunter, who’s formed a strong friendship with Agugua-Hamilton’s son, Eze. Hughey also has two adult daughters, one (Rhonda) in Houston and the other (Sanabarabara) in Charlotte, N.C.

Growing up, Hughey played football, basketball and baseball at C.A. Johnson High School in Columbia. He later played quarterback at South Carolina State for a couple of years before leaving to pursue a professional football career. He was unable to stick with teams in Canada and Europe and returned to the United States. He graduated from Limestone University in Gaffney, S.C., in 2006.

His mother died when Hughey was young, and his grandmother raised him. Tim Gates, his high school basketball coach, was a father figure for Hughey. Gates later helped launch Hughey’s coaching career.

“He said, ‘You need to come back and give back and volunteer your time like all those people did before you,’ ” Hughey recalled. “And so I did it for a year and I was like, ‘OK, maybe I might want to do this.’ ”

In Columbia, Hughey coached the boys team at Alcorn Middle School and then the ninth-grade boys team at Keenan High School, where he was also an assistant on the varsity. He broke into college coaching in 2004, when he joined the South Carolina State women’s staff as an assistant.

He left for South Carolina after the 2006-07 season, knowing his stay in Columbia might be a short one. Hughey said that Susan Walvius, then the Gamecocks’ head coach, told him, “ ‘I don’t know if I’m coming back next year. Everything is predicated on this year. We could win, and I might get a new contract, or we could lose.’ I said, ‘I’ll take it,’ ”

After South Carolina finished 16-16 overall in 2007-08, Walvius resigned, and Dawn Staley was hired to head the program.

“I talked to Dawn,” Hughey recalled, “and she said, ‘I am not keeping you on my staff. I’m bringing my staff from Temple with me, but I’ll do everything I can do to help you.’ And that started our relationship. We have a great relationship now.”

Agugua-Hamilton was an assistant at several schools—VCU, Indiana, Old Dominion and Michigan State—before being named head coach at Missouri State in 2019. Hughey can’t remember exactly when he met Coach Mox, “but the one thing I know we connected on was just the passion that we have. And that’s why I really liked her. Everybody doesn’t want to grind and everybody doesn’t want to put their passion and life into it. And she was one of the [coaches] that wanted to do that.”

Hughey’s mentors include Sampson, whose Houston team was NCAA runner-up in 2024-25.

“The first thing you learn from him is you are what you emphasize every single day,” Hughey said. “The second thing you learn is discipline is what you need in life, not motivation. It’s discipline that puts you through all those moments. Motivation is going to fizzle out. It’s discipline every single day.

“Third thing is, have a plan, work your plan, don’t deviate from your plan. Fourth thing is, champions are made through toughness. And they say it every single day, the toughest team wins. Toughness is what grinds you through, toughness and discipline. And that’s what it’s all about. It’s all about that every single day.”

Since starting at JPJ, Hughey has been breaking down videotape of every one of the Cavaliers’ defensive possessions in 2024-25. If there was a defensive breakdown that led to a shot or basket for the opposing team, he notes what happened.

Hughey is not a proponent of zone defenses. “I’m a man-to-man guy,” he said. “I’m a full-court press guy.”

In 2022-23, Houston ranked No. 2 nationally in steals per game, No. 2 in turnovers forced per game, No. 2 in 3-point percentage defense, No. 41 in blocked shots per game, No. 57 in scoring defense, and No. 72 in field goal percentage defense. Those Cougars pressed full court. Once opponents got the ball across midcourt, they encountered more pressure.

“Now you’ve got to spend another eight to 10 seconds trying to get yourself organized into a set, because we’re denying you,” Hughey said. “We’re not letting you pass the ball around.”

At UVA, Hughey is excited about the potential of a team that’s added eight newcomers—seven of them transfers—since the end of the 2024-25 season. The 2025-26 Cavaliers, who began summer workouts this week, are taller, more athletic and more experienced than the group that finished 17-15 last season.

His challenge, Hughey said, is getting “everybody to buy in with understanding how we want to do things [defensively]. You have to be detailed, and you are what you emphasize.

“So this year we’re gonna be a little bit more aggressive in the half court; we’re definitely going to be aggressive in the full court. My job is to be a crazy lunatic over everything defensively, and they’ll know there’s a great emphasis here on that.”

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