The Plus/Minus: Virginia Women’s Basketball Slides by Miami

Plus

A win is a win is a win. Virginia, currently a Charlie-Creme First Four Out bubble team, stuffed Miami, who Creme regarded as a Second Four Out team. It is always good to take care of your competition for those last spots. This was Miami’s last shot at earning a Quad 1 win in what could have been a trap game for Virginia. Virginia broke open a tight game in the third quarter and cruised home in the fourth.

Plus

Kymora Johnson led all scorers with 18 points, six rebounds and five assists. Mo was 4 – 8 from deep and with her fourth trey of the night, set the Virginia record for threes in a season.

KYMORA. JOHNSON.

A program record 7️⃣1️⃣ threes in one season 🔥#GoHoos🔸⚔️🔹 #GNSL pic.twitter.com/Xhex7eLoMa
— Virginia Women's Basketball (@UVAWomensHoops) February 6, 2026

This is no shock to anyone as she now sits at #1 and #3 for single-season threes. With her next three, Johnson will hit 200 career threes. Virginia has six ACC games remaining, plus tournament and possible NCAA tournament games awaiting, so Johnson could set the career record (221) this season. As if that wasn’t significant enough, Johnson also went over 500 assists for her career, just one of six Cavaliers to record that many.

Minus

This was not an advertisement for the women’s game. The Hoos won the turnover battle, 14 – 20, but turned the ball over on their first three possessions. It wasn’t until the fourth quarter that Virginia actually had more assists than turnovers. For Miami’s part, point guard Gal Raviv, playing after a recently-broken nose, is going to score a lot of points, but she had six turnovers, and I’m telling you, four of those were among the ugliest you will see. Miami’s Ra Shya Kyle is third in the ACC in double-doubles, but she has the ugliest shot I’ve seen in years in that she doesn’t shoot the ball, she just heaves it at the rim. She shot 3/13 on the night and honestly, I’m surprised that she got even three to fall.

Plus

With Virginia up 29 – 27 a scrum for a rebound between Kyle and Virginia’s Tabitha Amanze and Caitlyn Weimar seemingly ended with the ball out of bounds off Virginia. Except that a ref called a foul on Kyle, and upon review, the foul was upgraded to a Flagrant-One. As I said, it was a scrum and didn’t look like a foul to me and having it upgraded seems a gift. Since a Flagrant-One is basically a technical, Johnson got to take the free throws and she canned both. Then Virginia got the ball back and Amanze grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on the put back. That was the heart of a 13 - 1 run that gave Virginia the cushion that they never relinquished. This is what good teams do, they take advantage of the opportunities presented to them.

Plus

Gabby White got her first start of the season, and since she’s a freshman, the first start of her career. White had scored 37 points, grabbed 19 rebounds and dished out six assists in her previous two games, so if there was ever a case to be made that a bench player deserved to start, White was making it. She had a solid game scoring 10 points and grabbing five offensive rebounds, two of which led to her making old-fashioned three-point plays. A mediocre free throw shooter this season, she hit both her and-1s. She attacks the rim in much the same way as does Chance Mallory.

Gabby doing Gabby things 😤#GoHoos🔸⚔️🔹 #GNSL pic.twitter.com/jxu3fpZ1zf
— Virginia Women's Basketball (@UVAWomensHoops) February 6, 2026

Minus

Virginia shot under 40% from the floor, under 30% from three-point range, and just barely hit 60% from the line. Those shooting numbers will lose you most games. Thank goodness it was Miami.

Plus

Virginia owned the offensive boards despite Miami’s Kyle standing 6’ 6”. Virginia corralled 21 offensive rebounds, which you can do when you’re shooting 40/30/60. The Hoos turned those 21 rebounds into 20 second-chance points. Miami’s 10 offensive rebounds yielded just eight second-chance points. That was the ball game right there.

Plus

Did I mention that Miami is bad? Amarachi Kimpson apparently doesn’t know that the shot clock is visible right over the basket. Three times she got the ball with about 10 seconds left on the clock. She showed zero awareness, pounding the rock, largely standing still, ultimately forcing a trio of poor shots. Virginia was credited with forcing only one shot-clock violation, but really, it could have been three.

Plus

If Chance Mallory is fun to watch, partly because he’s a small man playing a giant’s game, the same could be said for Miami’s Ahnay Adams, who at 5’ 4” was the smallest player on the court. On this night she missed all her shots, but she was fearless going to the rim. Twice she got switched onto 6’ 2” Sa’Myah Smith in the post. Smith didn’t score on either possession.

Plus

Romi Levy has been a bit of an enigma. Typically, she’s the most aggressive Hoo right out of the gates. If I had to bet, and had the time to go check, I would bet that she’s scored the bulk of her points in the first five minutes of the first quarter. And then she goes passive. Not this game. She did hit a three on just about her first touch of the ball, but she continued all game to the tune of 9 points (2/3 from deep,) four rebounds, three assists and a pair of steals. I liked how she responded to being knocked out of the starting lineup by Gabby White.

Minus

Coach Agugua-Hamilton has always seemed comfortable going nine- or ten-deep into her bench but she has shortened her rotation dramatically the past couple of games. Adeang Ring has missed the last two games and wasn’t even on the bench for this game. Jillian Brown, who started just three games ago, got two minutes and Breona Hurd recorded just three. The decline in Hurd’s play has been shocking and coach Mox seems to have lost all faith in her.

Next Up: Virginia hosts Notre Dame on Sunday, February 8th. Game time is 2:00pm and the game can be streamed on ACC Network Extra.