In search of a new coach, the Virginia women’s basketball program chose a candidate that was simultaneously near by and far away. That’s because Amaka Agugua-Hamilton owns a resume with head coaching experience in the midwest, but basketball roots in the state of Virginia.
Virginia athletics director Carla Williams announced Amaka “Mox” Agugua-Hamilton (Uh-mah-kuh Uh-goo-gwa) as head coach Monday. She served as the head coach at Missouri State the past three seasons with a 74-15 record, played high school basketball at Oakton High School, and spent early years in the college coaching ranks at both VCU and Old Dominion.
That background blend appears to make her a quality hire in an effort to revive the UVA program.
“I am overjoyed and thankful for this tremendous opportunity to lead this group of young women at one of the best academic and athletic institutions in the country,” Agugua-Hamilton said in a news release. “I was immediately drawn in by Carla Williams’ vision for the women’s basketball program and the athletic department as a whole. I am certain I will thrive under her leadership. As a Virginia native, UVA is a dream come true for me. I could not be more excited to be HOME!”
Agugua-Hamilton will inherit a program with a drastically different starting point than when she took over at Missouri State. Kellie Harper guided the Bears to five straight postseason appearances, including the 2019 Sweet Sixteen, before leaving for the head coaching job at Tennessee. She won 118 games at MSU and the team she left Agugua-Hamilton had only one senior.
The Bears continued to thrive under Agugua-Hamilton. With a 74-15 overall record and a 46-6 record in the Missouri Valley Conference, her teams won two MVC regular-season titles (2020, 2021) and have earned back-to-back NCAA Tournaments (2021, 2022) with another a Sweet 16 trip in 2020-21. MSU had a 26-4 record in her first season when the postseason was canceled due to the pandemic.
Missouri State, in other words, qualified for eight straight postseasons if you count the pandemic year since the Bears would have made either the NCAA Tournament or the WNIT.
The Virginia program will present a much different challenge. Agugua-Hamilton takes over for Tina Thompson, who was dismissed from the job shortly after an opening game loss in the ACC Tournament. That concluded a 5-22 season and 30-63 overall record, which included an 0-5 2020-2021 campaign before the Cavaliers canceled their season during the pandemic. If you take the final two losses from the 2019-2020 season and move forward from there, Thompson’s tenure ended with a 5-29 slide.
UVA has not qualified for any postseason games in the NCAA Tournament or the WNIT since the 2017-2018 season when Joanne Boyle led the Cavaliers to a first-round upset when No. 10 seed UVA topped No. 7 seed California. That was Boyle’s only NCAA trip, however, to go alongside four WNIT appearances. Prior to the 2018 NCAA Tournament bid and win, the Hoos’ last appearance in the field came in 2009-2010 and their last win in the event came in 2008-2009 under legendary coach Debbie Ryan.
Long story short: Agugua-Hamilton takes over a program this time that has as many NCAA Tournament wins since 2005 as she had in the last two years at Missouri State with a Sweet 16 run and a victory in the new First Four this season. Three.
Agugua-Hamilton, two-time MVC Coach of the Year and the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association Spalding Maggie Dixon Rookie Coach of the Year in 2020, has helped usher in improvement at a lot of previous stops in her basketball journey. As a player, she helped Hofstra to a WNIT berth in 2006, the school’s first-ever postseason appearance.
In the coaching world, she has been around success regularly too. At VCU, she helped the Rams to a pair of 26-win seasons and the school’s first NCAA Tournament appearance. At ODU for two seasons, she helped the Monarchs to an eight-win improvement and WNIT berth in her second year. During a six-year stint at Michigan State, Agugua-Hamilton helped the Spartans to four seasons with at least 21 wins, four NCAA Tournaments, one WNIT bid, and the 2014 Big Ten regular-season title. That helped a successful program stay on track. At Missouri State, she went 26-4 in her first season to set a school record for regular-season wins.
Williams believes she has found the person to get Virginia back to success again too.
“We are thrilled and very fortunate to have recruited Coach Mox to UVA,” Williams said in a news release. “She is a gifted teacher, a skilled tactician of the game and a person who cares deeply about her players and vice versa. Her teams play with tremendous tenacity and confidence. Coach Mox has a reputation for recruiting and developing talent. While these qualities are necessary to build a competitive program, we have been most impressed with Coach Mox as a person. Her integrity, work ethic, passion for education and determination to build something special here at UVA is inspiring.”
First question you have to ask her is where “Mox” comes from. Assuming moxie?
I assumed it was from her name, Amaka.
I’m sure she’s wonderful, and my hope is she has great success. But forgive me for not being able to get over Dawn Staley. Stuck there, on many levels.
Not forgiven. Get over t.
I had never heard of Amaka “Mox” Agugua-Hamilton until yesterday, but everything that I have read about her since then makes me think that she is a great hire. I loved her comment “As a Virginia native, UVA is a dream come true for me. I could not be more excited to be HOME!”
And I equally like what Carla had to say about her: “She is a gifted teacher, a skilled tactician of the game and a person who cares deeply about her players and vice versa. Her teams play with tremendous tenacity and confidence. Coach Mox has a reputation for recruiting and developing talent. While these qualities are necessary to build a competitive program, we have been most impressed with Coach Mox as a person. Her integrity, work ethic, passion for education and determination to build something special here at UVA is inspiring.”
I think that Coach “Mox” will bring great energy to the position, to the team, & to the university. I also like the fact that she is young. (She’ll turn 39 in a few weeks.) Coach Bennett was 39 when UVA hired him.
I’m really excited about the hire.