Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Women’s Basketball Walloped by Notre Dame

The year ended with a thud for Virginia as Notre Dame’s three-headed hydra of Hanna Hidalgo, Olivia Miles and Sonia Citron put on a show, winning 95-54.

Val Prochaska

Virginia Athletic

The Virginia Cavaliers are playing for an NCAA berth.  The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are playing for a #1 seed.  Were there any positives that the women can take away?

Minus

Sonia Citron is Notre Dame’s third-best player, and yet she is better than anyone on Virginia.  Such is the gulf in class between the two programs.  Citron scored 25 points on 5/9 shooting from deep, Hannah Hidalgo had a game-high 28 points, and Olivia Miles had her second consecutive triple-double even as she had a sub-par shooting night.

Minus

Virginia started brightly enough, scoring the game’s first four points.  After notching the score 9-9 at the five-minute mark, Virginia was then outscored 28-0 (yes, you read that correctly) over the next 10 minutes.  It was game over at that point, even if there was another 25 minutes left to play.

Minus

Coach Agugua-Hamilton started the team in what is looking more and more like a 3 – 2 zone.  I’d been encouraged by this tactical development thus far in the young season as in theory it fits the team’s personnel.  But the team regressed in execution.  Playing zone is all about maintaining team shape and shape was pretty much non-existent on the day.  Lots of players pushing teammates to where they should be.  The team has been running this zone for five games now and you’d think they’d be a little more comfortable with their assignments.

Plus

One ray of hope: after starting the game 2/7 from the free throw line, Virginia closed strong in the fourth quarter going a perfect 9/9.  Most notably, Breona Hurd, who has struggled from the line all season, went 4/4 in the fourth which allowed her to convert back-to-back and-1s.

Minus

Yonta Vaughn missed another game and I didn’t see her on the bench.  The team needs her.  Coach Mox isn’t playing Payton Dunbar any more and Casey Valenti-Paea isn’t getting more than scrub’s minutes each game.  That leaves just Kymora Johnson and Paris Clark as the only guards on the team.  The ACC is a guard-heavy league, and while Hurd and Olivia McGhee bring nice height at the wing slots, they are going to struggle to stay in front of ACC-caliber guards.

Plus

I’ve written this silver lining many a time during the Coach Mox era, though it does not seem to be sticking, but Notre Dame put on a master class on how to run a fast break.  Everybody on Notre Dame runs harder than anybody on Virginia, be it getting up the court or tracking back on D.  Hidalgo had four buckets on the break where she was finishing at the rim as the nearest Virginia defender was still at about the foul line.  Notre Dame is a thin team in that they don’t have a lot of depth.  And yet they sell out for the break.

As an example:

Citron on the left and Hidalgo on the right have released quickly, are running hard, and staying wide.  Staying that wide and running that hard will give similar space in the lane as to what Olivia Miles got and she split two defenders for the easy finish at the rim.  While Virginia doesn’t have any one of the quality of those two, Johnson is faster than Miles and she can convert that finish.  I don’t think Virginia has run a fast break as pretty as that all year.  This is a young team that Coach Mox has, but at some point, they’re going to learn how to really run.

Plus

Notre Dame is the class of the ACC and it only gets easier from here.

Minus

The numbers are just ugly.  Virginia shot 19/64 (29.7%) from the floor, 5/21 (23.8%) from deep, and even with that 9/9 fourth quarter, 11/16 (68.8%) from the charity stripe. 

Next Up: Virginia hosts Wake Forest on Thursday, January 2nd at 7:00pm.  The game will be available on ACC Network Extra.

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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 seven 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.