Can UVA women's basketball make a run in the ACC Tournament?
The 2025 Ally ACC Women’s Basketball Tournament gets underway Wednesday inside the First Horizon Coliseum, and the red-hot Virginia Cavaliers are hoping to channel their recent stretch of stellar play into a nice run in Greensboro.
No. 13 Syracuse and No. 12 Boston College will tip things off at 1 p.m. on Wednesday before the 10th-seeded ’Hoos take the floor at 3:30 p.m. for their opening round matchup with the 15th-seeded Pittsburgh Panthers. All three of Wednesday’s opening round games will be broadcast on ACC Network.
Two weeks ago, Virginia hit the road to face Pitt on February 16th and bested the Panthers 80-67. Kymora Johnson recorded Virginia’s first triple-double since Dawn Staley in the matchup with 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists, while Latasha Lattimore finished with a season-high 30 points in arguably her most dominant performance of the season.
Should Virginia win on Wednesday, the ’Hoos would advance to play the No. 7 California Golden Bears on Thursday at 5 p.m. Though Virginia lost its regular-season matchup with the Golden Bears, 76-70, on February 20th inside John Paul Jones Arena, the ’Hoos took a five-point lead into the half and were within striking distance down the stretch. Johnson again led the way for Virginia against Cal, finishing with 24 points, seven rebounds, and five assists.
Looking even further down the bracket, a trip to the quarterfinals would mean a matchup with ACC Player of the Year Hannah Hidalgo and the 2nd-seeded Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Though Notre Dame handed the ’Hoos one of their ugliest losses of the season (95-54 on December 29th), Virginia is looking like an entirely different basketball team now than they were in late 2024.
Despite an up-and-down 2024-25 campaign, there’s plenty of reason to believe that Virginia can make a run this week in Greensboro based on the way the ’Hoos have been playing since mid-February. UVA enters the ACC Tournament winners of four of its last five games, including a 78-75 victory in Chapel Hill over then-No. 8 North Carolina to conclude the regular season.
The emergence of Paris Clark — who’s averaging 15.3 points per game since Feb. 6th — as a consistent scoring threat, coupled with the continued dominance of Kymora Johnson and Latasha Lattimore, has Virginia’s offense humming. And on the defensive end, the ’Hoos posted their most efficient performance of the season against SMU last Thursday before holding the Tar Heels to just 48 points over the final three quarters of Sunday’s big win.
Plus, it’s not crazy to say that no one in the conference is playing better basketball right now than Virginia’s Kymora Johnson. The Charlottesville native was named to All-ACC First Team on Tuesday evening, becoming the first Cavalier to do so since 2001.
Johnson, who leads the conference with 6.5 assists per game and ranks sixth in scoring at 17.3 points per game, has been Virginia’s rock since her arrival last season. Over UVA’s impressive five-game stretch to end the season, Johnson has taken her game to the next level, pouring in 20.6 points per game while dishing out 9.2 assists per game.
If the ’Hoos are going to make a run, it will be due to Johnson masterfully pulling the strings in the backcourt.
To make a run, Virginia will need to overcome some lackluster recent history in the ACC Tournament, since the ’Hoos haven’t won a game in the event since 2019. However, UVA mercifully avoided a first-round matchup with Wake Forest, who has beaten the ’Hoos in the first round in each of the past three seasons.
Despite its recent ACC Tournament struggles, Virginia is playing as well as anyone in the league right now — and it’s got Kymora Johnson. I’ve said for a while now that nobody would want to see the ’Hoos in their portion of the bracket, and that holds especially true after their trip to Chapel Hill this weekend. Virginia certainly isn’t the favorite in Greensboro this week, but sometimes all it takes in March is to be playing your best basketball at the perfect time.
