Virginia fired Amaka Agugua-Hamilton as head coach of the women’s basketball program Saturday.
Agugua-Hamilton led the Cavaliers to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2000. She went 70-58, including a 29-42 mark in ACC play.
Virginia became the first double-digit seed to reach the regional semifinals since 2022 and pulled off the upset of the tournament, knocking off No. 2 seed Iowa on the road in double overtime in the second round.
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It became the first First Four team to advance this far, before falling to TCU.
“I thought we had some really good moments in that game,” Agugua-Hamilton said after that loss. “But the third quarter got away from us. … We came up short, but that doesn’t take away from our season or the growth we’ve had with our program.”
South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, who starred at Virginia as a player, said she had just heard about the coaching change.
“I did reach out to our athletic director at Virginia and she just told me they did part ways. I don’t know why. We’ll talk,” Staley said. “I did reach out to Coach Mox to check on her. I didn’t have time to have a conversation with her. I don’t know what went wrong. She had them on the right track.”
Staley said she hopes Virginia gets it together.
“We got a deeply rich tradition at UVA on this stage, and we hope to get our team back there one day sooner than later,” Staley said of her alma mater.
