To say that Virginia head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton has turned the Cavaliers’ women’s basketball program around in a hurry would be putting it mildly.
UVA improved to 6-0 on the season with a 62-41 win over Campbell at John Paul Jones Arena on Wednesday night, giving the Wahoos more victories than they had all of last season with still three games left in the month of November.
Virginia finished with a 5-22 record in 2021-22 — in what turned out to be Tina Thompson’s fourth and final season in Charlottesville — and Agugua-Hamilton, affectionately known as “Coach Mox,” was brought in from Missouri State to turn things around.
Boy, has she done just that and then some, leading the Hoos to their first 6-0 start since the 1997-98 season. Coach Mox said all the tools were already in place upon her arrival, it was just a matter of getting the most out of the preparation leading up to opening night.
“When I came in here, nobody had a losing mentality,” she said of her new players. “All of them, they wanted to compete, they wanted to win at a high level, they just were on a team that was losing last year.
“So that was one thing, I was shocked before I even met them coming into individual workouts when I first got hired, I thought I was going to have to change the mentality, get them to work hard, things like that. First workout, people were working hard, they’re talking, they’re hungry, so I think that’s already changed.”
Coach Mox also believes that the way she sets up her practices has been a determining factor in the success of the team thus far.
“The way we structure everything, even in individual workouts or practices, there’s a winner and loser to every drill,” she explained. “So you start to get even more competitive before we even start playing games, because you don’t want to lose a drill — because if you lose a drill…”
“You run,” said senior forward Camryn Taylor, as she and Agugua-Hamilton shared a laugh. “Or five push-ups.”
Coach Mox continued: “So that kind of just builds that whole mentality of expectation. I guess you can say it’s a win, and that carries over into games.”
That formula has certainly paid off across the first few weeks of the season. The Wahoos are not only winning games, they’re doing so in rather convincing fashion. Virginia defeated George Washington by 26 points in the opener before hitting the century mark in a 101-46 blowout of UMBC.
The Hoos then won by 20, 72-52, in the ACC opener against Wake Forest last Sunday at JPJ before tragedy struck the university and the Charlottesville community that night, not far down the road.
Just hours after defeating the Demon Deacons, the Cavaliers heard the news that three UVA football players — Lavel Davis Jr., Devin Chandler and D’Sean Perry — had died, and two other students, running back Mike Hollins and Marlee Morgan, were also shot on Grounds.
“There’s still a lot of healing that’s going on with this team, with our community, just UVA athletics,” said Coach Mox. “So I’m proud that [the players are] able to put things in kind of compartments and just give to their teammates, and show up every day with the same hunger and focus that we need to continue to win games, so I’m very proud of them.”
Taylor, who leads the team in scoring with 13.5 points per game, described how tough it was to take the floor on the road against Loyola-Chicago the following Wednesday, just three days after the shooting.
“A lot of us were really close with those victims and the two that were wounded in the shooting,” she said. “And I think we were like, ‘You know what? Let’s just play. Let’s honor them, because it wouldn’t be fair if we didn’t.’ So it was very hard, the Loyola game was very hard, just emotionally. I mean, we knew that that was on our shoulders, but we just came out with a win, made sure we stuck with each other and came together.”
The Cavaliers trailed the Ramblers by six at halftime, but rallied for a 68-62 win to move to 4-0, and then won another one on the road at American, 74-60, last weekend, before adding to the tally with the 21-point triumph Wednesday against the Camels.
There are only 11 players on the UVA roster, but each and every member of the team has made contributions. The Hoos have had at least eight players score in all six games, and on two occasions so far, everyone that entered the game showed up in the scorebook.
“We’re just very proud of ourselves, we want to keep this momentum going,” said Taylor. “And obviously we still have some more games in November, and once we get to December, obviously we’ll have practices more, we can fine-tune some things offensively and defensively, and just kind of keep things going.”
Virginia will be looking to make it 8-0 with a pair of home games at the Cavalier Classic this weekend. The Hoos will take on Minnesota on Saturday at 2 p.m. (ACCNX) before facing East Carolina Sunday at 2 (ACCN). Should they still be undefeated after those two, the Cavaliers could finish out a perfect month of November with a win at Penn State Wednesday in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge.
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