Coach Mox: “There’s no reason why we can’t win here”

By Jerry Ratcliffe

When Amaka Agugua-Hamilton was growing up in Northern Virginia, playing for Fred Priester at Oakton High School, women’s basketball at the University of Virginia was impossible to ignore.

Debbie Ryan’s Cavaliers were the jewels of the sport on the East Coast, ruling the rugged ACC, going to Final Fours, putting up banners, developing stars including the incomparable Dawn Staley.

When Agugua-Hamilton — known simply as “Coach Mox” to those who struggle with her name — was introduced to the UVA community as its new women’s coach on Thursday morning at John Paul Jones Arena, those banners, those names, became even more real.

Real, but not intimidating. She opened her heart and vision to those attending her presser, sharing her “FAB” philosophy (family, academics, basketball, in that order), her playing style (up-tempo offense, strong defense, rebounding) and her goals.

“When I was in high school, [Virginia basketball] was a staple,” Coach Mox said. “There were championships here. We will get back to that.”

The 38-year-old coach with a winning track record at Missouri State and a strong resume has already won over her returning Cavalier team, which never experienced a winning season under former coach Tina Thompson. While Coach Mox faces a challenging uphill battle in rebuilding Virginia basketball, she has a plan, which includes getting out in the community, rebuilding bridges, welcoming program alums, learning from the men’s staff, things that have been missing from the program.

“She’s been on our radar for a while,” said UVA AD Carla Williams. “When [Missouri State] made it to the Sweet 16, that got a lot of people’s attention because that’s a big deal. It’s a great program, but you still have to work at it. You’ve got to recruit. You’ve got to develop players in order to win.”

Exactly what Coach Mox did at Missouri State, and plans to do here. She’s bringing her entire staff with her to make for a smoother transition. Having grown up in the state, she knows what UVA basketball was and should be.

“Being home, there’s no better feeling, to be honest,” Coach Mox said. “I didn’t really know if that was going to happen in my career, just because jobs take you everywhere in this business. I spent a lot of time in the Midwest.”

With lots of family in Northern Virginia, D.C. and Maryland, she’s already driven the sales of UVA women’s basketball season tickets. All of this takes her back to her days at Oakton where she became a Cavalier fan.

“Some of those Final Four runs,” Coach Mox said about those early memories. “But for me, Dawn Staley, she was kind of bigger than life when I was growing up. Wendy Palmer, Tammi Reese … those names, I just remember the passion they played with, the pride that they walked around with and spoke about UVA with. It’s just a very strong brand, and being from this state I understand that.

“I understand what having Virginia on your chest means and the pride that goes with that.”

Restoring that pride won’t be easy. Virginia basketball has been down on its luck for a while now, and hasn’t really been relevant in the ACC.

For 41 years, UVA basketball suffered only three losing seasons: two under Ryan (including her very first of 34) and one under Joanne Boyle (seven seasons). Now, the Cavaliers are coming off four consecutive losing campaigns under Thompson (30-64 overall record, 15-39 in the ACC) including two embarrassing forfeits this past season when the team went 5-23 and 2-16 in the ACC.

Williams mentioned that the returning players haven’t been able to wipe the smile off their faces since they learned about Coach Mox’s hiring. There’s a reason why.

Senior Carole Miller shared her thoughts on why the last four years have been such a struggle:

“There were several reasons on both sides,” Miller said. “We, as a group, didn’t often play together and reflect what we wanted to put out on the court. But also, it seemed sometimes that we were kind of given up on.”

Coach Mox told her players during Thursday’s press conference that she’s looking forward to the journey ahead.

“I look forward to building relationships, winning on the court, winning in the classroom and winning in the community,” Coach Mox said. “There will be some ups and downs, some good times and bad, but we’ll get through them together.

“There’s a lot of work to be done here, but there’s a lot of blessings ahead. There are banners to be hung. This community is hungry for more and so am I.”

Coach Mox said she and her staff are all about player development and relationship building. She plans to recruit hard, and while she wants to recruit first-years, she also has the benefit of the transfer portal, which can help rebuild teams quickly.

She knows that getting the community reinvigorated is one of the keys to success, and being a people-person, she plans to get involved and win back the fan base.

While it was difficult to comprehend what Thompson’s coaching philosophy was both on and off the court, Coach Mox made it perfectly clear how she intends to play.

“My style of play won’t change,” Coach Mox said. “It’s up-tempo. We’ll play fast, make or miss. We have an organized transition break, but we like to get up and down. I have a continuity offense that we flow into but also run a lot of quick hits. I like versatile players, post players that can shoot, guards, big guards that can post.

“Defensively, if you look at our track record, when I was at Missouri State, we were top 10 in scoring defense in the country. Rebounding, we were up there with our stats in the country, because that’s a staple. That’s who we are going to be. We have to defend at a high level, be physical, understand angles. I’m more of a gap defense coach than deny.”

If all that didn’t win over Wahoo fans, then her next statement certainly did. While the previous staff had little, if anything to do with Tony Bennett and his staff, that won’t be the case with the incoming regime.

“I have a lot of respect for Coach Bennett and what he’s done here,” Coach Mox said. “And he doesn’t even know this, but actually the continuity offense that we run is a mover-blocker, and we studied that a lot from him and his father.

“So I’m excited to pick [Tony Bennett’s] brain on that a little bit. I respect his style of play and what he does, but I have my own thing and my philosophy and I think the community is going to enjoy it.”

Coach Mox didn’t get a tour of JPJ until Wednesday, but was hit with the wow factor immediately. She believes the facility will help her recruit and help restore Virginia women’s basketball.

“It’s endless,” Coach Mox said about the potential for her program. “Honestly, there’s no reason why we can’t win here. This facility is by far one of the best that I’ve seen, if not the best I’ve seen. We’ll get recruits on campus and they will be wowed by that. But to me, people make this place.”

Coach Mox was right, and by becoming UVA’s coach, she just added one more reason why Virginia will win again.