Roussell Getting Up to Speed at JPJRoussell Getting Up to Speed at JPJ
Jamie Holt

Roussell Getting Up to Speed at JPJ

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

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The walls in his office at John Paul Jones Arena are bare, and his University of Virginia polo shirt is out-of-the-package new.

That’s to be expected. UVA’s new head women’s basketball coach, Aaron Roussell, has been on the job for only a few days.

At this time last week, he was in charge of the program at the University of Richmond and had no plans to leave. But the position at Virginia opened unexpectedly last Saturday, and thus began a coaching search that ended with Roussell’s hire Tuesday.

There were few opportunities that would have enticed him to leave Richmond, Roussell said Friday at JPJ, but the opening at UVA was one of them. He’ll be missed in Richmond’s West End.

“Aaron is a fantastic human being and has worked hard to develop student-athletes on and off the court,” Kevin Hallock, UR’s president, said in a statement. “This is an excellent opportunity for Aaron and his family and we wish them all the best.”

At UVA, Roussell took over for Amaka Agugua-Hamilton. In four seasons under Agugua-Hamilton, the Cavaliers went 70-58 overall and 29-42 in ACC play.

Roussell's introductory press conference is Monday afternoon at JPJ.

His top priority since arriving in Charlottesville, Roussell said Friday, has been player retention. He’s met this week with all the Cavaliers who have eligibility remaining. That group includes Kymora Johnson, Sa’Myah Smith, Gabby White, Tabitha Amanze, Adeang Ring, Breona Hurd and Olivia McGhee, a forward who redshirted this season.

“It’s been really cool,” Roussell said. “You don't know what you're getting yourself into, but I think after meeting with the players, it's a really cool and special group. They are great human beings.”

Several of those players entered the transfer portal after the coaching change and are weighing their options. Still, Roussell said, “I've met with all of them and do hope that there is strong retention.”

He’s been a head college coach for more than two decades. Roussell’s first head job was at the University of Chicago, where in eight seasons his teams went 161-50 and made four trips to the NCAA Division III tournament.

Roussell was interim head coach during his first year at Chicago, having been promoted on the eve of the 2004-05 season after the resignation of Jennifer Kroll.

“That was a really hard baptism by fire,” Roussell told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “A lot of people feel you’re lucky to get a head coaching job at 25. I didn’t feel that way at the time.”

He grew into the job, though, and the Maroons won 43 consecutive regular-season games late in his tenure there.

Roussell left Chicago in 2012 for Bucknell University, where in seven seasons his teams posted a 151-72 record, with two Patriot League tournament titles.

Then came seven seasons at Richmond, where in 2019 he took over a program that was coming off a 9-21 season and hadn’t advanced to the NCAA tournament in 14 years. Under Roussell, the Spiders went 148-72 and made the NCAAs in each of his final three seasons.

UVA director of athletics Carla Williams and Aaron RoussellUVA director of athletics Carla Williams and Aaron Roussell

At UVA, he's in the process of putting together his staff.

“I feel really good about it,” Roussell said. “We'll bring some people from Richmond. We had a great staff there, but when you come to this place you can't bring everybody, and I think that part's going to be hard. You need some folks that have done this at this level. And so I think that's vitally important.”

Continuity is also important, Roussell said, “so we're trying to blend that a little bit, while also trying to make sure you find a home for everybody from the previous staff.”

He’s the seventh head coach in program history. His predecessors include Joanne Boyle, who’s also a former UR head coach, and Debbie Ryan, who guided the Hoos to three Final Fours during her Hall of Fame career.

Roussell said he’s heard this week from Boyle, who still lives in Charlottesville, and he met with Ryan on Friday afternoon at JPJ. Roussell also sat down Friday with UVA alumnus Rick Carlisle, who’s the head coach of the NBA’s Indiana Pacers.

Roussell has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Iowa and a master’s from Minnesota State. He was born in Germany, where his parents were serving in the U.S. Army, but spent much of his childhood in San Antonio, Texas.

When he was a freshman in high school, his family moved to Minnesota, near Lake Minnetonka. “I claim Minnesota to be home,” Roussell said, “but I’ve moved around so much since that I haven’t really lived there for 25 years.”

Roussell and his wife, the former Molly Abernethy, have a 15-year-old son, Riley, and two daughters: 11-year-old Kelsey and 8-year-old Kendall.

Molly Roussell, who grew up in South Bend, Ind., is a former director of operations for the women’s basketball program at Virginia Commonwealth University, and her uncle Tom Abernethy started for head coach Bobby Knight on the unbeaten Indiana University team that won the NCAA title in 1976.

“She’s got a basketball background, so that makes our job a little easier,” Aaron Roussell said.

At UVA, Roussell will work in an environment with which he’s comfortable. Chicago, Bucknell and Richmond are also schools known for their academic excellence. In this era of NIL, education might not be “the same driver it used to be” in recruiting, Roussell acknowledged, but he’ll emphasize the value of a UVA degree to players.

He’s 1-0 as a head coach at JPJ. In November 2021, Richmond defeated UVA there, 74-65, after which Roussell said, “This is a really great win for our kids and our program.”

Roussell, who twice was named Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year during his time at UR, said he tried to schedule more games with Virginia, with no success. He’s not especially familiar with his new program’s recent history, Roussell said, but as Selection Sunday approached last month, both UR and Virginia were both on the NCAA tournament bubble, and he had his staff prepare a scouting report on the Cavaliers “just in case we matched up with them.”

Both teams ended up in the NCAA tournament’s First Four, though they didn’t face other.

For the Hoos, that was their first trip to the NCAAs since 2017-18, their final season under Boyle. Roussell built a program at Richmond that consistently contended for A-10 titles, and he’s looking to do the same with Virginia in the ACC.

The past week has been a whirlwind for Roussell, who as of Friday morning hadn’t had a chance to clean out his office at Richmond.

“I couldn’t be happier, but it’s bittersweet,” he said. “I mean this with whole sincerity: I was not looking to leave and thought I could stay at Richmond forever ... So it wasn’t as much of a slam-dunk no-brainer as probably people think. That's more of a credit to Richmond than it is detriment to here.”

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