Levy Adds Versatility to Revamped Roster

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Early in the third quarter of her first game for the University of Virginia women’s basketball team, Romi Levy heard prolonged cheering from the crowd at John Paul Jones Arena after her stickback of a missed shot by Kymora Johnson.

The Cavaliers, leading 60-21, had matters well in hand at that point Tuesday night, so the fans’ outburst might have seemed unwarranted to Levy, a graduate student from Israel. Looking up, though, Levy saw what had prompted all the applause. A graphic on the video board congratulated her for reaching the 1,000-point mark in her college career.

“No, I wasn’t expecting it,” Levy said with a smile after UVA’s 86-36 rout of Morgan State in the season opener for both teams.

Of her 1,000 career points, only eight have come with her in a Virginia uniform. The 6-foot-3 Levy scored 280 for Auburn and 712 for South Florida. But she’s only getting started at UVA, and head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton is thrilled to have her.

Against Morgan State, Levy totaled eight points (on 4-for-6 shooting), four assists, two steals, one blocked shot and a game-high 11 rebounds in about 19 minutes. Sa’Myah Smith, who’s recovering from a minor knee procedure, wasn’t available Tuesday night, so Levy started at power forward, “but she’s really a guard that can play the 4,” Agugua-Hamilton said.

“She can do multiple things. She has a motor that’s crazy, so she can run for days, but she’s long, she’s athletic. In between drills and stuff in practice, she’s going up there and grabbing the rim and doing all kinds of stuff like that. So she can rebound and she can track it down because of her athleticism. Offensively, she can drive, she can get to the mid-range, she can shoot, so I think we can move her around and just showcase her versatility.”

At 25, Levy is seven years older than guard Gabby White, the only freshman on the Wahoos’ roster. Levy is from Herzliya, Israel, and after graduating from high school she completed her country’s mandatory two-year national service requirement. So she was already 20 when she enrolled at Auburn in the summer of 2020.

Levy started 14 games for the Tigers in 2020-21 and was named to the SEC’s All-Freshman Team. She missed the next season after tearing her ACL, however, and another knee surgery ended her 2022-23 season prematurely.

After entering the transfer portal, Levy resumed her college career at South Florida, where she was named the American Athletic Conference’s Newcomer of the Year in 2023-24. She averaged 14.7 points and 4.8 rebounds per game that season and was named to the All-AAC second team.

Her second season at USF didn’t go as well. “It was tough,” Levy said. “A lot of not great things happened, but for the most part, I got hurt. I broke my nose and then things kind of just didn’t go our way, I would say, as a whole.”

With a year of eligibility remaining, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Levy saw UVA as an opportunity to start anew.

“Absolutely,” Levy said, “and Coach Mox is very aware of the situation that I was in last year. So she’s just here to support me, and she reminds me every day that I just need to go out there and have fun. I have the talent, I have what I need, I just need to let go and enjoy the moment when I step on the court. And once I play free and I just let go of everything, it just comes to me.”

Levy finished her bachelor’s degree in psychology in her first year at USF, and by the time she left Tampa, Fla., she’d also earned at MBA. At Virginia, she’s pursuing a master’s in the School of Education and Human Development.

She’s settled in well at UVA, where her friends include another native of Israel, Estel Valeanu, who starred as a thrower for the Cavalier track & field team in 2024-25. Valeanu is pursuing a Ph.D. in civil engineering at the University, and Levy sees her regularly at the weekly dinners at the Chabad House on Grounds.

Levy will have three college degrees by the time she leaves UVA next year. What will come next, she’s not sure, but “I want to stay around the sport,” Levy said. “I can’t live without basketball.”

That she was drawn to hoops was no surprise. Her sister, Sean, played for Israel’s national team, as did their mother, Liat. Levy’s grandmother Tamara Metal Schumacher also represented Israel in basketball, but she’s better known for another athletic accomplishment. Metal Schumacher became the first woman to represent Israel at the Olympics when she competed in the high jump and long jump at the 1952 Summer Games in Helsinki, Finland.

Levy’s father, Alon, played soccer professionally and has competed in triathlons. Levy, however, followed the paths of the women in her family. She, too, has played for Israel’s national team.

“When I was 3, I started playing basketball,” she said, “and I never tried anything else.”

At UVA, she’s part of a program that looks much different than it did at the end of last season. Of the 13 players on the roster, only five were Cavaliers in 2024-25: Johnson, Paris Clark, Olivia McGhee, Breona Hurd and Jillian Brown. The newcomers are White and transfers Levy, Smith (LSU), Adeang Ring (Central Florida), Tabitha Amanze (Princeton), Caitlin Weimar (NC State), Danelle Arigbabu (West Virginia) and Raiane Dias Dos Santos (Florida State).

Against Morgan State, UVA started Johnson, Clark, Levy, Brown and Amanze. Clark, a senior, finished with 18 points, eight rebounds and three steals. The 6-foot-4 Amanze had eight points, eight rebounds and five blocked shots against the shorter Bears.

If much of the Hoos’ roster has changed since last season, at least one thing hasn’t: Johnson continues to shine. In the opener, the All-America candidate contributed 24 points, six rebounds, five assists, one steal and one block in about 26 minutes.

“We were really excited to get out there and finally play and get the first win under our belt,” said Johnson, a junior who made the All-ACC first team in 2024-25. “But I’m really excited, and it just shows a little bit of what we can do. We can learn a lot from this game, and I think we will.”

The Hoos’ first five games are at JPJ. The next one is Sunday against Bucknell at 2 p.m. ACC play begins Dec. 7 for Virginia, and Agugua-Hamilton wants her team “to go into conference very confident. We have a lot of new kids. We have some returners mixing with that group, and they’re learning to play together, learning where people need the ball. That’s going to take some time for that to mesh really well. And so each game we just want to get better at what we’re trying to do.”

Levy is eager to do her part to help Virginia reach the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2017-18.

“I’m just blessed to be here,” she said. “I’m happy to be here with Coach Mox and around the team, because I had some tough [times] last year and I’m surrounded by the best people that can just make me better. So I’m really happy to be here, and I’m really excited to see what we can do as a team.”

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