UVA Women's Basketball Wins at Pitt 80-67

Virginia women's basketball (13-13, 5-9 ACC) earned an 80-67 road victory at Pittsburgh (11-16, 3-11 ACC) on Sunday afternoon at the Petersen Events Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Let's break down some quick takeaways from UVA's fourth true road win of the season.

Kymora Johnson drops historic triple-double

Dawn Staley has company. The legendary former Wahoo was the only player in the history of the UVA women's basketball program to record a triple double, doing so twice in her highly-decorated college career... until Sunday. Kymora Johnson posted the first triple-double by a Cavalier since 1991 and just the third UVA triple-double ever to lead the Hoos to their big road win. She didn't have a great day shooting the ball, finishing 5/20 from the floor and 2/9 from three, but the rest of her performance was exceptional, finishing with 20 points, 11 assists, and 11 rebounds to go along with two blocks and a steal. Johnson also played the entire game until exiting for a curtain call in the final minute of play. Hats off to Kymora Johnson for her historic game.

Latasha Lattimore gets back on track with a career day

Virginia's dynamic forward had her streak of nine-consecutive games in double figures snapped with a pair of eight-point outings in UVA's losses to Florida State and Virginia Tech last week. Well, Lattimore got back on track with a career performance against the Panthers on Sunday, finishing with a career-high 30 points and becoming the first Cavalier to eclipse the 30-point mark in a game this season. Lattimore shot 7/15 from the floor, knocked down a pair of threes, and went 14/18 from the charity stripe. She also corralled 11 rebounds for a double-double and blocked four shots. A dominant Latasha Lattimore is the most consistent factor in Virginia's wins this season.

Read Val's Plus/Minus breakdown of the game here.

Casey Valenti-Paea gives the Hoos a big lift off the bench

The absences of RyLee Grays and Olivia McGhee due to illness and an early injury to Breona Hurd, who was helped off the floor after tweaking her ankle but later returned, meant that Coach Mox had to go to her bench earlier and more frequently than usual. At that point, it was pretty much only Casey Valenti-Paea getting significant minutes out of UVA's limited bench mob. Valenti-Paea, who makes a lot of contributions outside of the box score, gave the Cavaliers a big-time boost off the bench with her first double-digit scoring effort of the season, finishing with 12 points on 3/5 shooting, including 2/4 from three and 4/4 from the free throw line. Maybe most notably, Valenti-Paea had a team-high +/- of +18 in her 28 minutes on the floor.

Virginia does the little things in order to win

Many of the statistical categories that have plagued the Cavaliers in their losses this season went the other way on this day. Not coincidentally, many of those stats are related to effort and discipline, and the Hoos were excellent in those areas on Sunday. Virginia won the rebounding battle 47-38, committed *less* turnovers (a few of their 16 turnovers were in the last minute when the game in hand), avoided foul trouble (which is particularly important given UVA's short bench), and got to the free throw line often and converted there, finishing 28/33 (84.8%) at the charity stripe. Despite shooting 37.3% from the floor and 25.8% from three-point range, Virginia did the little things well to win on this day.

Big Picture

After a week off, Virginia bounced back from a pair of disheartening blowout losses at home last week with a nice response on the road. The Cavaliers also took a solid step forward in improving their position in the ACC standings, now sitting in a tie for 10th place at 5-9 in ACC play. The NCAA Tournament is probably well out of reach now, but Virginia can still get a top eight seed and a bye in the ACC Tournament with a strong finish over the last four games of the regular season.

Up next, Virginia returns home to John Paul Jones Arena to take on California on Thursday, February 20th at 7pm ET on ACC Network Extra.

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