Hoos Asserting Themselves InsideHoos Asserting Themselves Inside

Hoos Asserting Themselves Inside

Virginia (10-3 overall, 2-0 ACC) scored 54 points in the paint Monday night in a 76-52 win over SMU at John Paul Jones Arena.

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — On the first possession of the fourth quarter Monday night, Kymora Johnson passed the basketball into the low post, where Caitlin Weimar scored with ease to push Virginia’s lead over SMU to 25 points.

If the Mustangs were experiencing déjà vu by that point, it was understandable. They knew what was coming but remained helpless to stop UVA’s interior assault at John Paul Jones Arena. The Cavaliers rolled to a 76-52 victory in their ACC home opener, in large part because of their dominance inside against an SMU team with no players taller than 6-foot-2. UVA finished with 54 points in the paint.

“We have really good post players,” head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton said. “We have a lot of them, and they're big. They're physical. They can score. So we want to make sure we get them the ball in a timely place where they can score. And they don't really have to make too many moves either, because we can just use our size and literally catch and score.”

Weimar, who stands 6-foot-4, totaled 13 points and 12 rebounds in 17-plus minutes off the bench, her second double-double in her first season as a Cavalier. UVA’s starting center, 6-foot-4 Tabitha Amanze, scored 11 points on 5-for-6 shooting, and power forward Sa’Myah Smith, who's 6-foot-2, finished with nine points and a season-high 15 rebounds.

Adeang Ring, a 6-foot-5 sophomore, added five points (on 2-for-3 shooting) in 12 minutes off the bench for Virginia (10-3 overall, 2-0 ACC).

“We’ve been working a lot on our two-man games and our passing into the post and things like that,” Agugua-Hamilton said, “so I was happy to see that growth today.”

Of the four teams Agugua-Hamilton has coached at UVA, this is the most talented. It might also be the most unselfish. The Wahoos came into their first ACC home game leading the conference in assists (19.1 per game), and they raised their average Monday night.

Led by junior point guard Kymora Johnson, Virginia assisted on 24 of its 32 field goals, a staggering 75%. Johnson finished with a game-high 10 assists, and UVA’s backup point guard, freshman Gabby White, had six. Five other Cavaliers had at least one assist each.

“It’s a big part of our game plan each night,” said Johnson, an All-America candidate. “We trust each other, we set each other up, and when we're open, we knock down shots for each other.

Against SMU (7-7, 0-2), the Hoos were 2 for 14 from 3-point range and10 for 18 from the line. Inside the arc, though, they shot 61.2%.

Game Highlights

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At the other end of the court, Virginia held the Mustangs to 31.7% accuracy from the floor. The Cavaliers came in leading the ACC in blocked shots, and they swatted six more away Monday night.

“I think we just have a post presence on both sides of the ball,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “We’re able to get the ball inside when we need to and finish layups at a high percentage. And then also defensively, we're able to back up the defense, you know, and have rim protection. So I thought all of our bigs did a really good job of blocking shots and altering shots [against SMU]. And it doesn't matter who we rotate in; we're really deep in that spot. We just need to make it really hard for teams to score at the rim, and I think we're doing a good job of that.”

For the season, Amanze, a transfer from Princeton, has a team-high 17 blocks, and Weimar has 15.

Weimar, who’s from Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., about 45 miles north of Manhattan, transferred to NC State in 2024 after three stellar seasons at Bucknell. An injury sidelined her last season, however, and she never played for the Wolfpack before transferring to Virginia.

As a Cavalier, Weimar averaging 6.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per game, and she’s looked increasingly comfortable as she rounds back into form.

“It’s definitely been a lot of work,” Weimar said, “but just being in practice, being around great people who are motivating me to keep pushing through and just get back into shape and just find the love for basketball again has helped it all come together.”

The SMU game marked the return of UVA forward Breona Hurd, a 6-foot-2 sophomore who’d been sidelined since the middle of last month with a knee injury. Hurd contributed six points, three rebounds and one blocked shot in 15-plus minutes off the bench Monday night.

“She’s a match-up problem for people,” Agugua-Hamilton. “I think defensively, she understands angles. She's long, she gets tips and steals, she can rebound. She has to work her way back into it and just get her feel back and things like that, but that's what happens. She had surgery in the middle of the season, so coming back and just making sure she gets her legs under her and understands her place on the team and her role and all that [will take time]. But I thought she gave good minutes.”

Virginia, which is 3-0 all-time against SMU, went ahead to stay Monday night on a three-point play by Amanze at the 7:07 mark of the first quarter. The Hoos led by eight at the halftime and then blew past the Mustangs in the third quarter.

Johnson, coming off a game in which she made a program-record 10 treys and scored a career-best 41 points, turned in another superb performance Monday night. She led the Hoos in points (17), assists (10) and steals (six). The six steals matched her career high.

“A lot of people think that I only play one side of the ball, and I'm only an offensive threat, whether it's passing or scoring,” Johnson said. “And so I thought tonight, ‘Why not?’ My shots weren't falling from 3, so I was like, ‘Why not get involved in other ways?’ And I knew if I got pressure on the ball, got steals, then we would have easy runouts, easy layups. And transition was a point of emphasis for us, so I knew being aggressive on defense was gonna help that run.”

For the Cavaliers, who opened ACC play with an 81-55 win at Boston College, a four-game homestand ends Thursday night. At 7 o’clock, Clemson (10-4, 1-1) visits JPJ. A win over the Tigers would move Virginia to 3-0 in ACC play for the first time since 2017-18.

“I think that we have a great team,” Johnson said, “and we want to show what we got. We’re real hungry to prove a point in this league.”

Agugua-Hamilton said: “I think our players really, really click. They really support each other. They're happy to see people do well. I just think we're a selfless group. And that's why we do have a lot of assists and that's why we have different people step up and things like that. So I love the camaraderie and the synergy of the group ... I just think we’re hungry.”

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