Kymora Johnson grew up in Charlottesville, went to school at St. Anne’s-Belfield, practically on Grounds.
As a five-star recruit, she could have gone to school anywhere in the country.
She wanted to do something special at Virginia.
“It means a lot. It’s hard to put into words but that’s what I came here to do. That’s what these girls came here to do, put this place back on the map,” said Johnson, who, finally, in her junior season, has led the ‘Hoos (19-11) to an NCAA Tournament.
It’s the first NCAA appearance for Virginia since 2018, and just the second since the forced exit of Debbie Ryan, who led UVA to 739 wins, 14 ACC championships and three Final Fours in her 34 seasons as head coach, from 1977-2011.
Johnson, as a local kid, grew up in the shadow of Virginia Basketball – she was a ball girl at JPJ, and her AAU team played a mini-game at halftime of a UVA game when she was in middle school.
“Virginia, in its glory days, was amazing. I grew up watching Virginia. My mom grew up watching Virginia. So, just knowing that that’s possible, and finally being able to do it, has been amazing. I’m really excited for tomorrow and the rest of March,” Johnson said.
March Madness
- Virginia will face Arizona State (24-10) in the First Four on Thursday (9 p.m. ET, ESPN2).
- The winner advances to face #7 seed Georgia (22-9) on Saturday (1:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2).
“I was really confident that we did enough to be in, so I wanted to prepare our team that way,” said UVA coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, who has Virginia into the NCAA Tournament for the first time in her four-year tenure.
I, ahem, wasn’t as confident, and as it turns out, there was good reason: not only is Virginia in the First Four, as one of the Last Four In, but their name was literally the last one announced into the 68-team field.
“We were watching the show, and we were the last name called. That was hard, because we’re sitting there kind of like, OK, are we in? We heard our name called, and it was just pure joy,” Agugua-Hamilton said.
Johnson, named a finalist for the 2026 Women’s Basketball Coaches Association All-America Team on Wednesday, is a big reason why.
“Her game speaks for itself,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “It’s just great to see here walking into her dreams. She’s a hometown kid. She literally grow up less than two miles from our arena, and she wanted to stay home and bring this program back into national talks and back into the NCAA Tournament championship and pursuing championships. So, to see her come here and live out her dream has been so gratifying for me. She deserves it.
“This team deserves it,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “A lot of these players came here to play with her, and she’s a player that can score the ball, but I think what makes her different is she’s such a willing passer. She wants to make the right play. If you double her, which teams do all the time, she’s not necessarily going to force a shot. She’s going to make the right basketball play. There are some times we want her to take that shot, but that’s what kind of kid she is; very selfless.”
The coach, some were saying, ahead of Selection Sunday, was on the edge of the hot seat, considering the lack of postseason success in Agugua-Hamilton’s tenure to date, against a backdrop of significant investments into the program the past couple of years.
“When I got to Virginia, this program was 5-22, coming off a season of 5-22, dead last in the ACC,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “I knew what I was walking into, and I knew it was going to be a challenging job, but I also wanted to build it the right way.
“I’m a Virginia native. I know when the glory days were with Debbie Ryan and Dawn Staley and Wendy Palmer and Tammi Reese, all those players. So, I know where this program has been, and I see the banners every day, so I know where it’s going and where we could get it to go. Matter of time before it really clicked.
“This is just the beginning. We’re back in the tournament, but we’re going to continue to build from here,” Agugua-Hamilton said.
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Chris Graham
