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18 CAVALIER CORNER BY MELISSA DUDEK W hat a difference a year makes. "One of the best stories from around the — forget the ACC, from around the entire country — Coach Mox comes in there, Year 1, jumps on the Virginia program … and man alive! She can't lose!" Mark Packer made that statement on an episode of the ACC PM show on the ACC Network in early December. When he said it, Virginia women's basketball first-year head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, affectionately known as Coach Mox, was just getting started. Agugua-Hamilton came to the program with a track record of winning. She went 74-15 (.831 winning percentage) in three years at Missouri State and led the Bears to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament in 2021. Everyone was eager to see what she could do with her dream job of leading an ACC school in her home state. She has not disappointed. The Cavaliers tallied 12 straight wins to begin the season, the best start to a season for the Cavaliers since the 1991-92 Final Four team opened up on a 13-0 tear. It was also the longest win streak for the team since the 1994-95 campaign and just the third time in program history that the Cavaliers went unde- feated (11-0) against nonconference foes. Through Jan. 25, UVA (14-6 overall, 3-6 ACC) was tied for the biggest improvement in wins (+9 after last year's 5-22 mark) in NCAA Division I women's basketball, and had the second biggest turnaround in win- ning percentage (+.515, .185 to .700). ESPN.com women's basketball expert M.A. Voepel took early notice of what Coach Mox was doing, naming her the National Coach of the Week after three wins in November. It was easy to see from a glance at the team's record that the squad was winning games. It was how they were winning and whom they were defeating that made the feat even more impressive. The Cavaliers opened the season by taking on George Washington — a team they had lost to the previous year — and erasing a halftime deficit to win 85-59. In their second game, a 101-46 victory against UMBC, UVA scored in triple digits for the first time in five years. UVA played its earliest-ever conference contest, taking on Wake Forest Nov. 13 in the third game of the season. Coach Mox won the battle of ACC rookie coaches with a 72-52 victory against Megan Gebbia and the Demon Deacons. The Cavaliers also picked up two wins against Big Ten schools, including an im- pressive 89-68 road win at Penn State in the ACC/ Big Ten Challenge, the first time in a de- cade that UVA won a game in the Challenge. Virginia's 11-0 run in nonconference play included wins over last season's Patriot League champions (American), Big South regular-season champions (Campbell) and the MEAC runner-up (Morgan State). It was after the win against Morgan State, the team's 12th of the year, that another mile- stone was achieved. The Cavaliers entered the USA Today Coaches Poll at No. 25. It was the first time that UVA had been ranked in that poll since March 8, 2010, and the first time being ranked in any national top-25 poll since Nov. 21, 2011 by the Associated Press. "I told them even in preseason that we could be really, really good," Agugua- Hamilton said. "Once it really clicks and we play together and just understand we get confidence from our preparation, we can be good. And I still tell them that all the time. "It's something that I truly believe. I take it one game at a time, for sure, but I go into the games very confident because I believe in the talent we have and the character we have and then also the family we have." The talent that she is referring to is a mix- ture of familiar and new faces. The Cavaliers returned seven players from the 2021-22 team, including four starters. Agugua-Hamilton added four players to the mix, including a pair of key transfers in third-year guard Alexia Smith (Minnesota) and graduate student forward Sam Brunelle (Notre Dame), a native of Ruckersville, Va. She also signed two talented first-year guards, top-50 prospect Yonta Vaughn from Forestville (Md.) Bishop McNamara and Cady Pauley, a player that Agugua-Hamilton had initially signed at Missouri State. The turnaround is from top to bottom. All eleven players on the team have scored in double figures in at least one game this season. Eight of the 11 have led the team in scoring in a game. Pauley, the player with the fewest minutes, found herself making the ESPN SportsCenter Top Ten in December, put- GRIND NOW GRIND NOW, SHINE LATER SHINE LATER UVA Women's Basketball Makes Great Strides In Year 1 Under Head Coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton Agugua-Hamilton and her team gave Virginia fans plenty to celebrate from the beginning, opening the season 12-0 for the program's best start since the 1991-92 Final Four team went 13-0. (Photo by Matt Riley/courtesy UVA)