Just thinking out loud here, but if, say, the UVA women’s hoops team gets left out of the 2026 NCAA Tournament, as I expect will be the case, and the decision would be made to cut bait with fourth-year coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, which is entirely possible, there’s a group with experience at Virginia that could come in and be expected to get the job done.
I’m talking about a former Debbie Ryan assistant, Tim Taylor, whose staff – which includes former Virginia standouts Sam Brunelle and Faith Randolph – was just named the Patriot League Staff of the Year, after leading Navy to a 21-7 regular-season record, and a 16-2 mark in league play.
Taylor took over a Navy program that had gone 7-23 in the 2019-2020 season, went 5-7 in an abbreviated COVID year in 2020-2021, then slogged through two rebuilding campaigns – 10-21 in 2021-2022, 1-29 in 2022-2023.
Since: Navy was 14-17 in 2023-2024, 19-12 in 2024-2025, and now the Middies are sitting at 21 wins, with a date in the Patriot Tournament semifinals on Thursday with Lehigh (16-13 in 2025-2026).
Brunelle, in her first year as a college assistant, was a McDonald’s All-American whose college career was limited by a run of injuries.
The Greene County native averaged 9.3 points and 3.8 rebounds per game over her five seasons – three at Notre Dame, the final two at Virginia.
Randolph, a 2016 UVA alum, averaged 11.7 points and 3.8 rebounds per game over her four-year career at Virginia, and played professionally for three seasons in Europe.
If Virginia doesn’t get an NCAA bid on Sunday, and I don’t think it’s looking good, the word behind the scenes has been that Agugua-Hamilton could be on thin ice.
I’d expect, if this all comes to pass, that Carla Williams would want to make a splash hire, because that’s what she does – we all remember Tina Thompson, which didn’t work out, and spectacularly so.
We could do worse than Tim Taylor & Co., is what I’m getting at.
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Chris Graham
