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The Plus/Minus: Virginia Women’s Basketball Wins Overtime Duel with Georgia

Sa’Myah Smith’s first half offense and Romi Levy’s second half defense propel Virginia to 82 – 73 victory over Georgia.
Val Prochaska|
Romi Levy
Romi Levy | Virginia Athletics

Plus

A win is a win is a win.  If I described Virginia’s victory over Arizona State in the play-in game as “not an advertisement for the women’s game,” (I did) then this was a banner game.  Stunning performances from Sa’Myah Smith and Romi Levy, coupled with Kymora Johnson’s usual brilliance, offset equally brilliant outings from Georgia’s Mia Woolfolk and Rylie Theuerkauf.  It is a shame that someone had to lose.  Well, no, it’s better that Georgia lost, but still.

Plus

Smith was the crown jewel in coach Agugua-Hamilton’s transfer class, coming to Virginia from LSU where she had been a productive member of three straight Elite 8 teams.  To say that the season has not gone as planned for Smith would be a gross understatement.  She sat for the first month recovering from a foot injury and then she suffered two losses in her immediate family.  For most of the season, Smith has been a shell of the player she had hoped to be.

Until today. 

Smith’s first half might have been the best half any Hoo has played all season as she was 8/8 from the floor en route to 18 first half points.  For good measure she grabbed eight boards.  Six of those shots were mid-range jumpers from the elbow or the top of the key.  Two more times she used the gravity she’d created to pump and drive to the rim.  As near as I can tell, she made just a single mistake the entire half when she took one step too many driving to the rim and bundled into a Georgia defender who clearly had gotten set.

Smith was quiet in the second half but she got back into rhythm as she scored five of Virginia’s eleven points in overtime.  Smith was calm on the court, taking her shots without hesitation.  She looked like a pro out there.  If this Smith continues to show up for the rest of tournament, Virginia will be playing in the second weekend.

Plus

Virginia opened up in the 3 – 2 zone they’ve frequently deployed throughout the season.  I like it.  It’s a good weapon to have in your quiver.  But there are always spaces to be exploited in any zone, in any defense.  And boy, did Rylie Theuerkauf find the gaps in the first half.  At the break, she led all scorers with 20 points on the strength of 5/7 shooting from deep and a four-point And-1 for good measure.  The gap in the 3 – 2 that can be exploited is the corner 3 and Theuerkauf was running baseline, often ignored, and hitting everything in sight.  To be honest, it was shades of Kyle Guy.  Georgia took a 43 – 42 lead into the locker room at the half, with Theuerkauf having single-handedly erased Smith’s magical first half.

Coach Mox’s halftime decision was to go straight man for the entire second half and put Levy on Theuerkauf.  She could have put Paris Clark, her best defender on Theuerkauf, but instead she chose Levy.  It was the right call.  Levy has six inches on Theuerkauf and is plenty agile.  Levy shut her down completely as Theuerkauf only got two shots off the final 25 minutes.  That was the ball game.  Levy played every minute of the game, went 4/6 from deep and recorded five steals.  She was player of the game.

Plus

There aren’t nearly as many upsets in the women’s tournament as there are in the men’s.  The talent is more stratified, the top seeds get to host, and the game is still evolving.  Virginia’s (seeded 10th) win over #7 Georgia was the first upset of the tournament.

Virginia is first upset of the tournament
Brackets Buster! | ESPN

Plus

It is hard to overstate how good this Georgia team looked.  Theuerkauf was raining fire in the first half and in the second half Mia Woolfolk took over.  Woolfolk scored 27 points on 13 shots.  She showed Audi Crooks-like footwork around the rim, showing the ball to get Tabitha Amanze and Caitlin Weimar to bite.  Woolfolk fouled both of them out, and as the only post player for Georgia, gave up only four fouls for her part. She got gassed down the stretch.  After connecting on her first four foul shots, and looking very smooth at the line, she went 5/11 down the stretch.  She hits a couple more and Georgia walks away with the win.  Which is not to denigrate an otherwise stunning performance.

And going back to Theuerkauf…  We’ve seen her the last two years at Wake Forest where was… serviceable.  She scored 10 ppg her sophomore year but was just a 30% shooter from deep.  This year she has scored 15 or more points as many times as she had her first two years at Wake.  And I haven’t even mentioned Dani Carnegie, last year’s Sixth Man of the Year at Georgia Tech who became the second-leading scorer in the SEC.  (She had a dud of a game thanks to the continued excellence of Paris Clark.)

Minus

This is a young Georgia team.  Theuerkauf is a junior, but everyone else of consequence is a sophomore.  Pre-NIL, fans would be salivating for the next two years with this core group together.  But now?  Who knows what the team will look like.

Plus

Coach Mox and Georgia coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson, thankfully shortened to coach Abe, were on staff together at Indiana.  Coach Abe was actually a bridesmaid for coach Mox.  Which certainly rings the bell on the cuteness meter.

Plus

Kymora Johnson.

As always.

After a month of slow starts, Johnson got rolling quickly, hitting a pair of threes in the first quarter and logging 13 points by halftime.  For the game Johnson had a game-high 28 points on 5/10 shooting from deep and a 7/7 performance from the line.  She grabbed seven boards and dished out six assists (against a single turnover.)  And she did this with Georgia’s Trinity Turner playing the most physical defense on her that I have seen all year.  That’s two games now of physical, in-your-grill defending that Johnson hasn’t experienced in her career.

And she can still do this.  (This felt like the biggest shot of the game.)

Plus

Johnson is now the women’s career leader in threes.

She won’t catch Curtis Staples, but she should pass Joe Harris for second all-time in Virginia history.

Up Next:  Virginia takes on #2 seed, and home team, Iowa on Monday, March 23rd at 2:00pm.  Game time is 2:00pm.

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Published
Val Prochaska
VAL PROCHASKA

Val graduated from the University of Virginia in the last millennium, back when writing one's senior thesis by hand was still a thing. He is a lifelong fan of the ACC, having chosen the Tobacco Road conference ahead of the Big East. Again, when that was still a thing. Val has covered Virginia men's basketball for nine years, first with HoosPlace and then with StreakingTheLawn, before joining us here at Virginia Cavaliers on SI in August of 2023, continuing to cover UVA men's basketball and also writing about women's soccer and women's basketball.

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