Virginia women’s basketball coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton plucked a sharpshooter from the transfer portal over the weekend.
Casey Valenti-Paea, most recently of Long Beach State, averaged 9.4 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 2.1 steals per game in 2023-2024, shooting 42.8 percent from the field and 37.9 percent from three-point range.
Valenti-Paea scored in double figures in 17 games in 2023-2024, so, she can add some punch for Coach Mox.
“I’m very excited about the addition of Casey to our program,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “Casey is going to enhance our culture and on-court play. She is an athletic, versatile guard who can score and defend. Casey can also shoot the 3 at a high clip and get in the paint to create for herself and others. She adds depth to our guard play. Wahoo Nation, you are going to love her.”
Prior to her time at Long Beach State, Valenti-Paea spent three years at Buffalo, including a redshirt year in 2022-2023.
She didn’t get much run at Buffalo – only eight appearances and 54 minutes total over the two seasons that she was on the active roster.
A native of Melbourne, Australia, Valenti-Paea played for Maribrynong College and for the Craigieburn Eagles, and was a Top 20 prospect in her class. She led Team Australia to a gold medal at the 3×3 Asia Cup and represented Victoria at the Australian Junior National Championships on multiple occasions. She was also tabbed MVP of the Victorian Championship Classics Tournament.
Valenti-Paea joins an already deep Virginia backcourt that returns rising sophomore point guard Kymora Johnson (15.3 ppg, 5.4 assists/g, 4.7 rebs/g, 41.3% FG, 31.7% 3FG), rising junior Paris Clark (9.9 ppg, 4.5 rebs/g, 40.3% FG, 36.0% 3FG), rising sophomore Olivia McGhee (5.5 ppg, 36.5% FG, 28.4% 3FG), with rising junior Yonta Vaughn (5.0 ppg, 3.5 assists/g, 33.3% FG, 31.1% 3FG) as the backup at point to Johnson, and rising senior Jillian Brown (5.7 ppg, 4.4 rebs/g, 35.4% FG, 29.4% 3FG) as a complement in the backcourt off the bench.
Ahead of the signing of Valenti-Paea, Mox had focused her attention on the transfer portal on beefing up the numbers in her frontcourt, which is losing Mir McLean (12.2 ppg, 9.6 rebs/g, 57.4% FG in 2022-2023) to the transfer portal, and Camryn Taylor (14.8 ppg, 6.1 rebs/g, 46.5% FG, 51.7% 3FG in 2023-2024) and Sam Brunelle (6.2 ppg, 36.0% FG, 33.1% 3FG in 2023-2024) to graduation.
Earlier this week, Virginia signed UNC transfer RyLee Grays, a 6’3” forward and rising sophomore, who joins 6’4” rising senior Latasha Lattimore, most recently of Miami, who averaged 5.6 points and 3.1 rebounds per game in 2023-2024, shooting 45.5 percent from the floor overall, and 29.4 percent from three-point range, and 6’7” rising sophomore Hawa Doumbouya, who barely got on the floor as a freshman at Maryland.
Mox has 6’3” rising sophomore Edessa Noyan (2.9 ppg, 3.1 rebs/g, 50.0% FG, 36.4% 3FG) and 6’7” grad student Taylor Lauterbach (1.2 ppg, 2.0 rebs/g, 26.5% FG, 18.2% 3FG) returning from 2023-2024.
Also factoring into the mix for playing time next season is 6’2” prep recruit Breona Hurd, a four-star prospect and Top 100 recruit.
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Chris Graham
