Virginia Falls to Cal 75-58 in ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament 2nd Round

Virginia’s run at the 2025 ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament has come to an end. The No. 10 seed Cavaliers (17-15) suffered a 75-58 loss to No. 7 seed California (25-7) in the second round of the ACC Tournament on Thursday evening at First Horizon Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. Let’s break down some key takeaways from UVA’s loss.

Virginia loses Latasha Lattimore, loses the game

Less than a minute into the second quarter, Latasha Lattimore went down with an injury, remaining on the floor for several minutes until she was eventually helped to the locker room with assistance. She did not return to the game. Now, things were already not great for Virginia by this point, as the Cavaliers were already trailing Cal 26-13 at the time of Lattimore’s injury. But her exit ruined any chance at a turnaround for UVA, who was severely outmatched in the front court in Lattimore’s absence. Cal outscored Virginia 34-26 in the paint and won the rebounding battle 46-28. It always sucks to see players get hurt; we wish Latasha Lattimore a speedy recovery.

The Cavaliers’ lack of depth comes back to bite them

I asked Coach Mox about this point in the pre-ACC Tournament Zoom call and she acknowledged that running such tight rotations was not her preferred strategy. Historically, Coach Mox likes to go 9-10 players deep, but a combination of injuries and an overall lack of depth for this year’s roster reduced Mox’s rotation to six players down the stretch. Those six players were able to get the job done late in the season, but it also put Virginia one injury away from catastrophe and that’s what happened on Thursday in Greensboro.

Johnson, Clark, Hurd not enough to carry UVA offensively

Continuing with the theme of depth, Virginia simply never established reliable scoring outside of Kymora Johnson and Latasha Lattimore this season. Sure there were nights that Paris Clark, Breona Hurd, Olivia McGhee, and Edessa Noyan chipped in, but the Cavaliers lacked consistent balanced scoring. On this night, Johnson scored 18 points on 8/21 shooting, but she was limited to just two assists. Clark (15 points) and Hurd (10 points) joined Johnson in double figures, but Noyan had six points and McGhee just three. That wasn’t nearly enough to keep up with a Cal offense that had three players score 16 points apiece.

Virginia takes care of the ball, gets crushed everywhere else

Virginia turned the ball over a season-low seven times. That sounds like a plus, but one of the best offensive facilitators in the conference was held to just two assists and the team had only eight assists on 21 made baskets. The Cavaliers shot 3/9 from three, while the Golden Bears knocked down nine threes. And as we mentioned earlier, without Lattimore, Virginia was outclassed in the paint and in the glass. On this night, an exceptional performance in the area of ball security was merely a footnote in the box score.

Give credit to Cal; that’s a very good basketball team. The Golden Bears have quietly gone 25-7 in their first season in the ACC, but still got stuck with the No. 7 seed because that’s just how strong this conference is. There’s no shame in this loss for Virginia.

What’s next for Coach Mox and the Hoos?

While this marks the end of UVA’s run in Greensboro at the ACC Tournament, that shouldn’t necesssarily be the end of the line for this Virginia women’s basketball season. The Cavaliers won’t hear their name called for the NCAA Tournament on Sunday, but they could very well receive a bid to the 32-team, NCAA-operated Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament (WBIT), which UVA competed in last year, or the 48-team, privately-run Women’s National Invitation Tournament (WNIT). Those selections should be revealed after the NCAA Tournament Selection Show on Sunday night.

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