UVA Basketball Still Happily Hooping in MarchUVA Basketball Still Happily Hooping in March

UVA Basketball Still Happily Hooping in March

by Jeff White

For the first time since 2018, both UVA basketball teams have advanced to the NCAA tournament.

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In the 1980s and ‘90s, when the University of Virginia’s two basketball teams regularly advanced to their respective NCAA tournaments in the same season, fans might have thought such dual success would continue forever.

In the 21st century, however, that’s rarely happened, largely because of the recent struggles of the women’s program. Each team received good news on Sunday, however, and UVA will be represented in both NCAA tournaments for only the third time in the past 25 years. (The first two were 2001 and 2018.)

The Cavalier men (29-5), who lost to top-ranked Duke in the ACC championship game Saturday night, earned a No. 3 seed and will face No. 14 seed Wright State in a first-round game Friday afternoon in Philadelphia.

The UVA women (19-11) were assigned a No. 10 seed in one of the First Four games. Virginia will take on Arizona State late Thursday night in Iowa City, Iowa, with the winner advancing to meet No. 7 seed Georgia on Saturday afternoon.

The men’s selection show started at 6 p.m. Sunday, and it was a stress-free evening for the Wahoos, who gathered at head coach Ryan Odom’s home for the occasion. The Hoos were locks to make the NCAA field, and the most pressing questions for them where what they would be seeded and to which site they’d be sent.

Odom, who’s in his first year at UVA, also has taken teams at UMBC, Utah State and VCU to the NCAA tournament. Only a handful of his players have been on teams that played in the NCAAs, though, and those who haven’t are also “fired up about it and excited about this opportunity,” Odom said.

The UVA women had a vastly different experience Sunday night. Their selection show aired at 8 o’clock, and 66 other teams heard their names called before the Virginia-Arizona State match-up was announced to complete the field.

“That was wild,” said Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, who’s in her fourth season as the Cavaliers’ head coach. “Honestly, I’ve never been in that position ... I think we started to get a little tense in there, and we were kind of like, ‘OK, what's left?’ I was certain we were in, but when it started getting down to the last couple of teams, I was getting a little nervous.”

For the Virginia women, this will be their first trip to the NCAAs since 2018, when, under head coach Joanne Boyle, they defeated Cal in the first round and lost to South Carolina in the second round in Columbia, S.C.

Agugua-Hamilton came to UVA from Missouri State, where in three seasons she compiled a record of 74-15. Two of her teams at Missouri State advanced to the NCAA tournament, and the other would have as well had the COVID-19 pandemic not wiped out the postseason in 2020.

She’d hoped to reach the NCAAs earlier in her UVA tenure, but it “was just a matter of time,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “And sometimes you’ve just got to run your own race, and when it's your time, it's your time.”

Had the Hoos followed their Feb. 22 road win over then-No. 8 Louisville with another victory, they would not have had to sweat out the selection show. But they closed the regular season with losses to North Carolina and Virginia Tech and then fell to Clemson in the ACC tournament.

UNC, Virginia Tech and Clemson also received NCAA tourney invites Sunday.

“There’s been a lot of highs in the season,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “We've done some great things, obviously, to get in the field at 68. But there's been some lows, too. And we had to learn through some tough losses ...  I think any time that we were together and any time we were on the same page and played with urgency, we were great. We won games, we closed out games, and when we weren't, we had to learn lessons that we can't show up to games that way.”

The Hoos returned home from Duluth, Ga., the site of the ACC tournament, on March 5. Agugua-Hamilton gave her players a few days off, and then the team resumed practicing on March 9.

“I'm just excited that we get another chance to play,” she said. “I feel blessed that we have another opportunity. Obviously, March Madness is the goal. Everybody wants to compete for a national championship and to be in that field. It’s just a blessing, and I'm just really happy for our players that we were able to do enough to get there, but also that we have so much left in our tank too.”

One of her teams at Missouri State reached the NCAA tournament’s Sweet Sixteen. Another one lost in the first round, so she knows well that in the NCAAs “you're only promised one game,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “I think we learned a hard lesson against Clemson in the ACC tournament, and now we gotta fight for it. We gotta fight for more time with this team.

“I'm just excited for the experience. I truly believe that we can be really good, and I don't think that we're one and done in this tournament.”

Ryan OdomRyan Odom

For the Cavalier men, this will be the program’s 11th trip to the NCAA tournament in 15 seasons. (UVA would have advanced in 2020, too, had the tournament been held.) In its most recent appearance, in 2024, Virginia lost to Colorado State in a First Four game in Dayton, Ohio.

The Hoos went into Sunday unsure where they’d be seeded in the NCAAs. A No. 4 was a possibility, but UVA’s strong showing in the ACC tournament clearly impressed the selection committee.

The No. 3 seed is “a testament to the hard work that these guys have put in since they got here in June,” Odom said. “I’m just really excited for them. We would have been happy with either seed, obviously, but you want to be the highest possible seed you can be. And to be the 3-seed and be able to stay somewhat close on the East Coast, it was huge.

“It's great for our fans certainly that live up in that direction, in that area, both north and south of Philly. I think it's a really good opportunity for our guys, for sure. And we know we're playing a really good team [in Wright State]. When you get to this time of year you're going to play a team that has won a lot of games and believes in itself ... I think our guys feel good about where we're at right now, but we understand you can get bounced quick, and we've got to be ready for that first game.”

The UVA-Wright State winner will face No. 6 seed Tennessee or a No. 11 seed (Miami-Ohio or SMU) in a second-round game Sunday in Philadelphia.

Better than most coaches, perhaps, Odom understands that nothing can be taken for granted in the NCAA tournament. In 2018, he coached the 16th-seeded UMBC team that made history by knocking off top-seeded UVA in a first-round game in Charlotte, N.C.

That the Hoos enter the tournament as a No. 3 seed is an accomplishment of which they can be proud, but “that doesn't guarantee us anything,” Odom said. “You have to play well on the day that the ball gets tipped up, and you can't have it off night any more. Maybe you escape, but you can't have an off night where it just doesn't work. You’ve got to be ready, and I'm looking forward to seeing our team get out there.”

In one of the most gripping championship games in ACC tournament history, second-seeded UVA lost 74-70 to top-seeded Duke late Saturday night in Charlotte.

About two weeks earlier, the Blue Devils had routed the Cavaliers 77-51 at Cameron Indoor Stadium in Durham, N.C. That was by far UVA’s worst loss of the season.

“Certainly, the moment was very big,” Odom said. “Going into Cameron Indoor the first time is not an easy thing. You have to kind of go through it the first time to get a feel for it. And there's a reason they're No. 1 in the country. And so it gave us a taste of what we were going to have to compete against at the highest, highest level. But by no means did it scare us.

“We had to get back to work and make sure that these guys are still confident in themselves. And I think they took that confidence from there and continued to work and improve, and they won some big games down the stretch.”

Virginia closed the regular season with four straight wins. “And so these guys should take tremendous confidence going into the NCAA tournament that they're a team to take notice of,” said Odom, who delighted in seeing his players’ reactions Sunday night.

“That’s the joy of coaching,” he said. “All kids grow up wanting to play in the Big Dance, those that play basketball and just love it. And when you're able to coach a team that's good enough to make the tournament, whether they win the automatic [bid] or they get the at-large like we did, it's really special. It really is. And I want these guys to experience it and take all that it has to offer.”

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Amaka Agugua-HamiltonAmaka Agugua-Hamilton