UVA Women's Basketball Takes Down No. 8 North Carolina 78-75

Virginia women's basketball (16-14, 8-10 ACC) ended the regular season on the highest of notes, taking down No. 8 North Carolina (25-6, 13-5 ACC) on Sunday afternoon at Carmichael Arena. Here are five takeaways from the Cavaliers' first win in Chapel Hill since January 11th, 2001, snapping a streak of 16-consecutive road losses against UNC.

Virginia finishes strong, delivers in the clutch

Let's go ahead and fast forward to the end of the game, shall we? The Tar Heels built a 10-point lead in the first quarter and led by as many as 18 points in the second quarter. A familiar storyline was beginning to play out, as the Cavaliers have often found themselves in big holes like this and they usually go on a run to get back in the game, but then run out of gas down the stretch. It was different this time, as Virginia narrowed the gap to just four points by the end of the third quarter and then went punch for punch with the Tar Heels in the fourth quarter. Most impressively, the Cavaliers never folded when the going got tough. UNC pushed its lead back to eight points with five minutes to go, but Virginia proceeded to score the next seven points and ended the game on a 15-4 run. The Hoos have let a few games slip away by failing to execute in the clutch. That wasn't the case this time around, as UVA got the stops it needed and then executed offensively, with Kymora Johnson and Paris Clark both hitting big-time free throws with the game on the line.

🔥🔥🔥 at the right time!! 👀
Top-10 win to finish out the regular season!#GoHoos🔸⚔️🔹 #GNSL pic.twitter.com/eo2w5L1rbE
— Virginia Women's Basketball (@UVAWomensHoops) March 2, 2025

The Cavaliers earn their most impressive win of the season

They'll need a lot more of this in Greensboro in order to sniff an NCAA Tournament bid, but this is the marquee victory the Cavaliers have been searching for all season. On the road in a gym where they hadn't won since before this entire roster was born and facing a top 10 team in the country on their senior day, Virginia executed better than North Carolina when it mattered most. UVA faced two other teams who were ranked in the top 10 at the time of the game and lost those two matchups by a combined 85 points. Virginia was 0-6 against ranked opponents this season until Sunday. What a big-time resume-building and confidence-boosting victory for Coach Mox's squad.

Latasha Lattimore and Maria Gakdeng clash in a heavyweight battle

One of the reasons it seemed that Virginia was going to lose this game until the very end was that the Cavaliers had no answer for UNC center Maria Gakdeng, who went for a career-high 25 points on a near-perfect 9/10 shooting from the floor and also collected nine rebounds. Neither Latasha Lattimore nor Edessa Noyan could stop her from hitting her hook shot. When they fouled her, Gakdeng made her free throws (7/8). And when Virginia double-teamed her, Gakdeng made the right pass, setting up her teammates to the tune of five assists. The saving grace for UVA as that Gakdeng and the Heels couldn't really stop Lattimore either, when she was on the floor that is. Lattimore spent 11 minutes on the bench in foul trouble as both she and Noyan finished the game with four fouls. But when she was in the game, Lattimore was excellent once again, finishing with 23 points on 10/14 shooting, including 2/4 from beyond the arc. Lattimore also had three blocks, including a game-winning block on Indya Nivar's layup attempt with just six seconds left in the game.

Virginia lights it up in the second half

After shooting 3/10 from beyond the arc in the first half, Virginia knocked down 8/13 three-point attempts in the second half and finished 11/23 (47.8%) for the game. North Carolina shot 6/29 (20.7%) from beyond the arc. In a game that was ultimately decided by just three points, that was a huge factor in UVA's favor. But the Cavaliers didn't knock down those shots by accident, they ran their offense well and diversified their scoring on a day where Kymora Johnson was allowed only three attempts from beyond the arc. Despite being forced to be a facilitator, Johnson still nearly recorded another triple-double, finishing with 15 points, 11 assists, and six rebounds. Like she did in the win over SMU on Thursday, Johnson turned it on late, scoring six points in the last three and a half minutes of the game, including four of the most clutch free throws you'll see. Paris Clark knocked down three three-pointers and finished with 17 points, three assists, and three steals, while Edessa Noyan had perhaps her best game in a Virginia uniform, matching a career-high with 16 points and knocking down four of her six three-point attempts. It was a true team effort from Virginia on Sunday in Chapel Hill.

Big Picture

These are the types of wins Virginia earned with frequency last season, but hasn't been able to replicate this year. As we alluded to earlier, UVA is still pretty far off from being in consideration for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, finishing the regular season 16-14 and 8-10 in ACC play. But this victory certainly points the Cavaliers in the right direction. Virginia will enter the ACC Tournament with a great deal of momentum, particularly when it comes to playing away from home. UVA is 6-4 on the road this season, has won its last four road games, and enters postseason play on a three-game winning streak overall.

There are still a few ACC games left to be played at the time of this article's publishing, so we do not know the overall bracket yet, but Virginia is essentially locked in to the No. 10 seed in next week's ACC Women's Basketball Tournament at Greensboro Coliseum. That means UVA will face the No. 15 seed in the first round on Wednesday at 3:30pm ET.

Update: Virginia will take on No. 15 seed Pittsburgh in the first round of the 2025 ACC Women's Basketball Tournament on Wednesday at 3:30pm ET at Greensboro Coliseum and the game will be televised on ACC Network.

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