Hoos Look to Advance Again in Iowa CityHoos Look to Advance Again in Iowa City
JIM SLOSIAREK

Hoos Look to Advance Again in Iowa City

In the NCAA women's basketball tournament's first round, No. 10 seed Virginia meets No. 7 seed Georgia at 1:30 p.m. ET on Saturday in Iowa City, Iowa.

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

To the surprise of no one who’s watched Kymora Johnson in her three seasons on the University of Virginia women’s basketball team, the junior guard made the game’s biggest shot Thursday night. Her 3-pointer with 30 seconds remaining put UVA ahead to stay in its First Four game with Arizona State in Iowa City, Iowa.

Johnson is “just one of a kind,” UVA head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton said Friday. “She's a three-level scorer, she can really score the ball, but she also is a great passer, a willing passer. She wants to make the right basketball play all the time ... She does whatever it takes to win.”

The Cavaliers are in the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2018, when they advanced to the second round before losing to South Carolina. To return to the second round, UVA will have to beat Georgia on Saturday, and more heroics from Johnson are likely to be required.

At 1:30 p.m. Eastern, in a game to air on ESPN2, the Wahoos (20-11) will meet the Bulldogs (22-9) at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City. UVA is one of the tournament’s No. 10 seeds, and Georgia is a No. 7 seed.

“Definitely they're a physical team,” Virginia center Caitlin Weimar said of the Bulldogs. “We’re just going to have to bring that physicality, mentally and physically, and just push for 40 minutes.”

The 6-foot-3 Weimar was one of UVA’s standouts in its 57-55 win over Arizona State. In 32 minutes off the bench, she totaled 11 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks. Johnson finished with 17 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and two steals.

Storylines abound in this match-up. UVA’s athletic director, Carla Williams, played and coached basketball at Georgia and later worked in athletic administration at the SEC school. Williams and the Bulldogs’ current head coach, Katie Abrahamson-Henderson, were teammates in Athens.

Moreover, Agugua-Hamilton and Abrahamson-Henderson are longtime friends who go by Coach Mox and Coach Abe, respectively. Agugua-Hamilton was in Abrahamson-Henderson’s wedding.

“Super happy for all her success that she's had in her whole career,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “Her teams play hard. They're physical, they defend, they can really score it.”

The Cavaliers, who are their fourth season under Agugua-Hamilton, weren’t at their best against Arizona State but still found a way to win.

“I think a lot of that game was our nerves and getting the jitters out,” Johnson said.

The experience should help her team, Agugua-Hamilton said, because the Sun Devils “were very physical and kind of took away some things we wanted to do offensively. We missed some bunnies that we should have easily scored. We missed some shots that we usually make.

“So it was good to kind of get those jitters out and then be able to have a game under our belt going into the Georgia game.”

Amaka Agugua-HamiltonAmaka Agugua-Hamilton

Arizona State didn’t fold after Johnson’s clutch 3-pointer made it 54-51 in the final minute, but Weimar’s two free throws with 11 seconds to play helped the Hoos hold on.

“Caitlin is somebody that doesn't really get rattled,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “She's going to play at her own pace and do her thing.”

Weimar began her college career at Marist in 2020-21 and later starred at Boston University. She’s a graduate student at UVA.

“I feel like in general I try to stay calm, very level-headed on and off the court,” Weimar said. “I think just having the experience that I have, I know that the game has runs and I know I just have to take what comes to me and do everything and control the controllables. So I think as long as I know I'm doing that, it helps me just like stay focused on doing what I can for the team and doing what I can to help us get the wins.”

That’s Johnson’s mentality, too.

“Just a really selfless individual,” Agugua-Hamilton said of her All-ACC point guard. “She works hard, she wants to master her craft, she wants to be a great teammate, she's in the community. She kind of does it all.”

Agugua-Hamilton came to UVA from Missouri State in March 2022. In Charlottesville, she took over a program coming off a 5-22 season. The Hoos went 15-15 in 2022-23, 16-16 in 2023-24 and 17-15 last season.

“Progress is a process,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “I tell [Virginia’s players] that all the time.”

A win over Georgia would represent another step forward a program that's looking to rejoin the nation’s elite.

“It's hard to put into words what we look like at our peak,” Johnson said. “I don't think we've reached it yet, but I do think that this is the stage that we should show it. We're excited.”

The keys to playing well on this stage?

“Confidence is a big piece of that,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “Togetherness is a big piece of that. Synergy, camaraderie, all those things. So I want to make sure we're clicking on all those levels with the intangible stuff and then understand the game plan and go out there and execute it.”

For the Hoos, it’s been a season marked by peaks, including wins over Louisville and Notre Dame, and valleys, among them a loss to UMBC.

“I think we've had some really, really good moments this year,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “We've had some games where we did put together 40 minutes and we were pretty special, and then we've had some games where we didn't. We didn't fight for 40 minutes, we didn't punch back when somebody punched back, to stop the bleeding.

“I think obviously you want to be playing your best basketball right now. Tomorrow's not promised. I think every game now we have an opportunity to reach that. I think our kids are getting hungrier. They're understanding what it takes to win in March and they're understanding that we have what it takes. We have the talent. We're missing some of the intangibles of just staying together, making sure we fight for 40 minutes together, be urgent, things like that ... We just want to keep fighting for one more game.”

To receive Jeff White’s articles by email, click the appropriate box in this link to subscribe.

Caitlin Weimar (12)Caitlin Weimar (12)