ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 6, 2025

Amaka Agugua-Hamilton

Kymora Johnson

Paris Clark

Virginia Cavaliers

Postgame Press Conference

Cal 75, Virginia 58

AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON: Credit to Cal. I thought they played a really good game. They hit shots. They were physical on the boards.

There was a lot of self-inflicted things I think we could have corrected, and we really didn't start being urgent and competing until probably the last 15 minutes of the game. By then we were in a pretty big hole.

A lot of stuff that we can definitely grow and be better from.

Q. How is Latasha doing, and what effect did her absence have on the team?

AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON: I don't have an update yet on how she's doing, but I think she's okay. Obviously it was a big -- when she went out, we were missing some rebounding. We were missing some scoring from inside, some rim protecting.

As a shot blocker, she does those things for us. Even though she kind of had a slow start to the game, she could have worked her way into that. It was a big miss when she went out. We had a couple other people go out for a little bit.

But Tash, we need Tash. She does a lot for us on the court.

Q. What about Cal's defense made it a tough shooting day for you guys?

AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON: I mean, honestly, I just think when we don't set new screens or cut hard and do things like that, we don't usually perform well, and I think that's kind of what it was. They were physical. I'm not going to say they weren't physical. But they were physical. They did a good job of rebounding.

But honestly I think some of the offensive stuff was self-inflicted. We weren't clicking. Our bigs weren't -- we didn't get enough production from our bigs rolling and things like that, setting and using screens, things that we usually talk about.

KYMORA JOHNSON: I think they just out-toughed us in the first half. We tried to come out and change that in the second half, but I think at that point we got ourselves into too far of a hole.

Q. There's still a lot of basketball left to be played, but falling behind 9-0 like that, how hard does that make it to be in a hole right out of the gate?

AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON: It's always difficult. It's happened to us many a times this year. We usually do a good job of climbing out of that, but we did want to start -- that was a big part of the game plan, start -- punch early. That didn't happen.

We didn't fold. We had to get it going. Then obviously Tash went out pretty early, too. It was kind of a mixture of all that stuff. But they were physical, they were tough, and it just took us a little bit to adjust.

Q. Paris and Kymora, the second game in basically 24 hours. Was fatigue a factor at all?

PARIS CLARK: I mean, I don't want to say it's a factor. I think playing back-to-back games for any team is going to be obviously some fatigue.

But I think it's March, and I think that's what it is, and you have to push through that.

To answer your question, I would say maybe yes, but really no. Like I said, it's March, and stuff like that, at the end of the day, can't matter.

KYMORA JOHNSON: Agreed.

Q. Coach, there's a very good chance postseason will continue for you. What do you tell your team moving forward now?

AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON: We've got to learn and grow from this. We talked about that in the locker room. We've got to get healthy, too. We've had a season filled with adversity. A lot of injuries. We've had bodies in and out. We've had illnesses. We've had all kinds of things.

We still to date haven't had our full roster that was available for this season in one practice. There's just been a lot of adversity.

This is just another thing that we can learn from and grow from and make sure that we understand the urgency it takes, the physicality it takes, the mental toughness, all that to win in March.

That's what we're focused on.

Q. To follow up on that, given the adversity, and of course you lost a couple players today, would you like to go to the WBIT and take this team and see how you do?

AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON: I mean, we'll see how it goes. Hopefully we get invited to that tournament. We have to see if we're healthy enough and things like that. But we've got competitors that want to play, want to play in March. Whatever happens, we'll see.

But I just know two of these kids next to me, I know they want to play, and I know there's players in the locker room that want to play. So we just have to digest this loss, understand what we need to get better at, and then go from there.

Q. Obviously Cal came in kind of pretty heralded on the three-point shooting front. For three of the four quarters you did a pretty good job holding them to a decent performance. What was the key to that?

AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON: You know, they're a difficult team to guard because No. 0 inside, she requires a double-team. She's really good in there. And then they have people that can knock down shots.

I wasn't initially planning on playing zone, but we were getting blown out at that point, so we went to zone and we were able to slow them down a little bit, and then we had to go back to man.

But at the end of the day, it was just about scrambling, having each other's back, guarding the ball. I think we could have guarded the ball way better. We went for a lot of fakes, and then they were driving. They got into the middle of the zone and were able to hit shooters.

When we did guard the ball and keep them out of the paint, we were able to stay matched up to the shooters, and they weren't getting good looks.

Just about really guarding the ball.

Q. Kymora, Coach referred to the effort in the final 15 minutes or so. You actually cut it to 13 in the fourth quarter and had a chance to make it even less. Was it important to finish the game strong like that even if you weren't going to come all the way back and win?

KYMORA JOHNSON: Yeah, we say it all the time. You never know what can happen. It's March; anything can happen. I didn't even realize it was that close of a game, but just fighting until the end, that's all we could do as a team.

Q. With Lattimore, then you lost Hurd in the fourth quarter. Are they worried about head injuries with both cases or are those not the issues there?

AMAKA AGUGUA-HAMILTON: I'm not going to comment on the medical status yet. I need to get an update on that.