For the first time in 21 years, Virginia and Virginia Tech women’s basketball both reached the NCAA Tournament last season. Now the challenge is to do it again.
With the bracket expanding from 68 teams to 76, both programs have a clearer path to another March bid. Even so, the pressure of repeating remains real. A back-to-back NCAA appearance would be the first for both schools since 1998 and ’99, and only the third time it has ever happened.
The Cavaliers are leaning into the optimism. Senior point guard Kymora Johnson, already a three-time All-ACC pick, didn’t hesitate when asked about the ceiling for this group.
“No ceiling,” Johnson said.
That confidence comes off a season in which Virginia surged to the Sweet 16, a run that carried the Cavaliers from the First Four through three NCAA Tournament wins in five days. Johnson is at the center of it all now, and she is on pace to finish as the No. 2 scorer in program history behind Monica Wright. She is also one of the five returning players Virginia kept from last season.
Virginia’s new coach, Aaron Roussell, arrives with a different blueprint. In seven seasons at Bucknell and seven more at Richmond, he piled up 12 winning seasons and five NCAA Tournament teams, including the last three with the Spiders. Players say the fit has been immediate.
“It’s been fun to have a lot of space and play free,” Johnson said.
Roussell described the system in similar terms, emphasizing movement, spacing and trust.
“We put a high priority on spacing, movement, trying to be hard to guard,” Roussell said. “Maybe there’s some direction early in a possession of kind of where we want people to go to, but I think it requires a lot of trust from coaches into our players …
“Then we just kind of play off of that and stack actions on top of that. I think it’s a fun system to coach, a fun system to play, and I think these guys … are going to really fit in very, very well with that.”
Virginia also added VCU guard Mary-Anna Asare, Florida center Caterina Piatti and Alabama guard Eris Lester through the portal, while freshman guard Emilie Brzonova joins from the Czech Republic with extensive international experience.
Roussell’s summer also brought a nonconference move that will give the Cavaliers a rare reunion with Old Dominion. UVA will visit Chartway Arena on Nov. 15, with the Monarchs returning to Charlottesville next season. The schools were once national powers, but they haven’t played in seven years.
Roussell pointed to the shared history between the programs when asked about the series.
“Being at the mid-major level (at Richmond where) nobody wanted to play you, I didn’t want to run from that,” Roussell said. “The history of the two schools and the two programs combined, hopefully we can resurrect that a little bit.”
At Virginia Tech, Megan Duffy is trying to keep the momentum moving in the same direction. Her first season ended with a 9-9 ACC mark, and last year the Hokies improved to 12-6 while sweeping Virginia.
Carleigh Wenzel remains the center of it all in Blacksburg. The fifth-year guard is the lone player left from Tech’s 2023 Final Four team and the leading scorer from last season’s NCAA Tournament squad. She also said the roster has enough to build around.
“I think we have all the pieces,” Wenzel said.
The Hokies, however, are replacing two major pieces from that roster. Forward Carys Baker, Tech’s top 3-point shooter and No. 2 scorer and rebounder, transferred to Louisville. Point guard Mackenzie Nelson, who led the ACC in assist/turnover ratio, transferred to Clemson.
“Every year as a coach, you know you’re going to lose some, bring some in,” Duffy said.
To fill those gaps, Tech brought in Tennessee transfer forwards Lauren Hurst and Alyssa Latham. Latham, now a graduate student, has played in three NCAA Tournaments, one with Syracuse and two with Tennessee, and earned All-ACC Freshman Team honors in 2023-24.
The Hokies may have their most intriguing newcomer in 6-foot-4 center Jessica Dimaro. A native of Nigeria who went to high school in Japan, she spent the past two seasons in a Japanese professional league, where she was Rookie of the Year and then averaged 12 points and 9.7 rebounds last season with 13 double-doubles.
“She’s super-athletic,” Duffy said. “She runs the floor … She’s great defensively. She’s a rim protector, which is something we needed.”
Veterans Samyha Suffren and Kate Sears, who is back after missing a year with injury, join Wenzel in the backcourt. Wenzel may also have more on her plate as a ballhandler after committing a team-high 100 turnovers last season, especially with Nelson gone.
When Nelson and Baker entered the portal, Wenzel stayed put.
“There are a lot of things that you need to talk about at the end of a season,” Wenzel said. “But my prayers were always answered.
Everything I had a question about was always answered. And so, I never really had a reason to leave.
There was never anything else I was chasing. There was never anything else I was looking for.
Everything I wanted, everything I prayed for, was at Virginia Tech.”
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