Mock Drafting the Virginia Women’s Basketball Team

Val and Matt set out to draft their own versions of the Blue and White teams ahead of next Wednesday’s season opener vs UMES

Over the past few weeks, we've taken a few different angles to preview the 2023-2024 Virginia women's basketball team and now we are concluding our review of UVA's roster playground style by lining ‘em up and picking one-by-one in order to create two teams for a fictional intrasquad scrimmage. 

We’ll do the men later this week. For now, Val had the first pick…

Val
Round 1 – Mir McLean

Yep, even though Mir won’t be back until sometime next year, I’m still going to go with the best player on the team. When healthy, McLean is the best rebounder in the ACC, even more so when you consider that she’s not even a six-footer. McLean is a McDonald’s All-American who was recruited to Connecticut and who then transferred to Virginia in the middle of the dumpster fire that was Tina Thompson’s last season.

Matt
Round 1 – Sam Brunelle

I came very close to picking Kymora Johnson here and I do think she’ll be very special this season. But Sam Brunelle has plans to end her collegiate career with a bang this season and I wrote just last week that Brunelle will be Virginia’s most important player. She’ll play a crucial role for the Cavaliers on both ends of the floor and her value to the team from a leadership standpoint goes well beyond what she contributes in the box score.

With that said, I hope Johnson makes me look even more foolish than I already do by not taking her with this pick.

Val
Round 2 – Kymora Johnson

I can’t believe you let me have Johnson, Matt. You’re the one who wrote that Mo could be the best player on the team… Coach Agugua-Hamilton wants to run. All the time. And Mo looked very comfortable leading the attack in transition in the Blue-White scrimmage. Plus, she’s got good range having won the McDonald’s three-point contest. We don’t have much of a track record as to how Coach Mox apportions playing time to freshmen, but point guard is the position where freshmen can have the greatest initial impact.

Matt
Round 2 – Camryn Taylor

This was probably the easiest pick of the draft for me (which I needed after agonizing over Brunelle vs. Johnson). While the Cavaliers endured significant adversity down the stretch last season, Camryn Taylor continued to produce at a high level en route to earning a spot on the All-ACC Second Team. Taylor scored in double figures 21 times last season and was the team’s leading scorer. It should be clear at this point that I’m placing a high value on experience on my team, selecting two fifth year players with my first two picks.

Val
Round 3 – Jillian Brown

It says something about the expectations you and I both have, Matt, for this team that Taylor, the most consistent performer two years running, is the fourth player taken.

But this next pick is the triumph of exuberance over rationality. I’m basing this only on what I saw in the Blue-White Scrimmage. I liked Brown’s decision-making on the break and in transition, especially on the secondary break (which was a huge weakness of the team last year.) Virginia had a lot of stupid charges on the break if the other team got back. Coach Mox still wants the women to take the ball to the rim and that’s where having a skilled trailer who can find the open player will be so valuable. A stupid charge can result in a four-point swing. Have a couple of those, and a team on the margin, like this one, has just lost the game.

Matt
Round 3 – Kaydan Lawson

I agree completely with your assessment of Jillian Brown, especially with regards to her smart decision-making in transition. I would have strongly considered Brown with this pick had she been available. With that said, I’m quite pleased to get Kaydan Lawson with this pick, another very experienced player who started 18 games last season. I’m hoping to see her take another big step forward this season and I’d like to see her aggressively hunt her shot as she did in strong games against Wake Forest and NC State last season, both wins for Virginia.

Val
Round 4 – London Clarkson

If you’ve got Brunelle and Taylor for our mythical scrimmage, Matt, I need a big. Clarkson is a dependable post player who has closed each of the last two seasons on trot. Maybe she’s a slow starter, maybe she doesn’t pick up the knocks other players do, but over the last third of the last two seasons, she’s a 10-point, 5-board forward. She’s been a poor free throw shooter over her entire career, but she had a late season renaissance from the charity stripe. Given that the Cavaliers were undersized last year and Clarkson was banging against much bigger women, she was remarkably foul free. She can play a larger role.

Matt
Round 4 - Alexia Smith

It was around this point in the draft that I remarked that the difficulty I was having making each of my selections was a great sign of how exciting this team is - so many quality players, each capable of having a significant impact on the season. I was going back and forth between Alexia Smith and Yonta Vaughn at this pick and I decided to go with Smith because of what she brings to the table as a defender and as a rebounder. Smith was second on the team in steals (34) and fourth in rebounding. Putting the ball in the basket is important, but it’s not everything, and Smith does a lot of the little things well for this team.

Val

Round 5 – Edessa Noyan

I need more size so I’m going to go with 6’3” Noyan who has played professionally in Sweden. Noyan originally committed to the University of San Francisco, but Coach Mox has been recruiting heavily in Sweden and Norway (at least three offers over the next three classes that I have been able to find.) I am extremely leery of highlight vids, but the one I found of Noyan shows her with a good handle for a post player. This may just be a learning year for her, but next year the three other bigs on the team will depart. Coach Mox will need to get her some time on the hardwood this season.

Matt
Round 5 – Olivia McGhee

Rejoice, fans of UVA women’s basketball. Olivia McGhee’s scary injury in the Blue-White Scrimmage (she collided with Taylor Lauterbach and hurt her knee, putting her on crutches after the scrimmage) ended up not being so serious. McGhee is back on the court and appears to be good to go for the beginning of the season next week.

That feeling when you know it’s 24 hours until we lace em up! #GoHoos 🔸⚔️🔹#GNSL @0liviaMcGhee pic.twitter.com/BYsykjejh3

— Virginia Women's Basketball (@UVAWomensHoops) November 1, 2023

That means the hype train is back on for the top 50 recruit and Louisa County native. Like Kymora Johnson, McGhee can and should contribute right away as a true freshman, and her athleticism will be a big asset for Coach Mox’s Cavaliers in transition.

Val
Round 6 – Cady Pauley

Matt, who lives in Charlottesville, obviously had better intel than I did on the health status of McGhee, otherwise I would have taken her. Gotta love her size – 6’ 2” – at the two-guard slot. I’m going to go with Pauley who is the most fun player to watch on this team, and who is already a crowd favorite. If Pauley can make the sophomore leap, she’s the player most poised to be the one who delivers the dagger 3. She’s the one with the potential to make the JPJ jump.

Matt
Round 6 – Paris Clark

It reflects well on you, Val, that you’ve drafted very well against me despite my supposed advantage from being in Charlottesville with my ear to the ground (or more specifically, my eyes and ears at UVA’s media day this week at JPJ). You snagged the other promising transfer guard in Jillian Brown and I couldn’t let you have both of them, so I’m taking Paris Clark here. Clark is going to miss a couple of weeks to start the season with an ankle sprain, but when she returns, I expect Clark, ranked the No. 33 incoming transfer by ESPN, to play a key role for the Cavaliers. Clark only scratched the surface of her potential as a freshman at Arizona and I think Coach Mox will help her take a big step towards reaching that potential once she gets healthy.

Val
Round 7 – Yonta Vaughn

Vaughn runs the risk of being the forgotten player on this team, as you and I both can attest, Matt. She’s the incumbent point guard. She’s got good vision and reads the game like you want your PG to do. She’s reliable and she doesn’t turn the ball over. She’s everything you want in a backup point guard.

Matt
Round 7 – Taylor Lauterbach

Completely agree on Yonta Vaughn - in my internal dialogue while we were drafting, I considered picking her with two or three of my selections. We’ve talked about how deep this team is and this draft has certainly proven that. I think Taylor Lauterbach has a big role to play on this team, yet here I am taking her with the final pick. She might be a bit of a project, given her lack of substantial playing time in her three seasons at Kansas State, but at 6’7”, she is the solution to one of UVA’s most significant roster weaknesses from last season, which was a lack of size at the center position.

Val (Team Blue)                                            Matt (Team White)

Mir McLean                                               Sam Brunelle
Kymora Johnson                                      Cam Taylor
Jillian Brown                                             Kaydan Lawson
London Clarkson                                      Alexia Smith
Edessa Noyan                                           Olivia McGhee
Cady Pauley                                              Paris Clark
Yonta Vaughn                                           Taylor Lauterbach

Pimp Your Team

Val: Why is my team gonna win? Well, Matt, you don’t have a point guard. Smith will be your lead guard, and she’s fine, but you don’t want the ball in the hands of Lawson on the break. College basketball is all about backcourt play and I’ve got better shooting and ballhandling. And while this was specifically not a keeper draft, my team is younger. I’m only losing Clarkson, you’re only keeping Smith, McGhee and Clark.

Matt: Maybe I’m counting on us doing a re-draft with next season’s roster, but I certainly went all in on this season with the amount of fourth and fifth-year seniors on my roster. You’ve definitely got me beat on guard play, and the arrival of Kymora Johnson could signal that Coach Mox’s team is ready to put a greater emphasis on the backcourt, but the forwards carried the day for Virginia last season - Taylor and Brunelle were UVA’s two leading scorers after McLean’s injury. I think my team will have a hefty advantage in the paint and on the glass and I think the grouping of Lawson, Smith, McGhee, and Clark will give me plenty of production in the backcourt and on the wings.

It’s unfortunate that we won’t get to see our hypothetical teams go head-to-head, as I think it would be a very entertaining matchup. 

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