The UVA women’s basketball team beat American 104-68.

Virginia women’s basketball took care of business in the 2024-25 season opener with a 104-68 win over American on Monday night at John Paul Jones Arena. Opening the season stress-free and injury-free is always a great start. With one game in hand, let’s look at five quick takeaways from the Cavaliers’ win.

The Cavaliers opened the season with Kimora Johnson, Paris Clark, Breonna Heard, Edessa Noyan and Taylor Lauterbach. Freshman Payton Dunbar will not redshirt this year as she was the first off the bench. Yonta Vaughn was unable to play in the game and Kamryn Kitchen plans to redshirt, but every other available player played at least 16 minutes. Nine players scored at least seven points, and the Hos’ numbers varied in the second half. This is typical of coach Mox, but there really didn’t seem to be any glaring flaws in the rotation, which is a promising sign.

After jumping out to an early 13-2 lead, UVA quickly settled into its season, leading 26-12 at the end of the first quarter. After a slow start to the second quarter (an all too common occurrence last season), the Hos immediately regained control with a 17-2 run to end the half. Pick your favorite stat and the Hoos are likely to dominate it. The Cavs shot 52% from the field, 10/28 from three and outscored the Americans by 17. The defense had 10 blocks, nine steals and racked up 35 fast breaks. Despite 14 turnovers and several forced shots throughout the game, this one was never in doubt and allowed the team to shake off the rust.

Breonna Hurd and Mo Johnson completely dominated this game. In her college debut, Bre scored 18 points on 15 shots, including 2/5 from deep in just 25 minutes. Johnson was the game’s leading scorer with 21 points on nine shooting, including 3/3 from three and 6/6 from the line. She added nine assists, three rebounds and a steal in a very efficient 22 minutes. Bre and Mo are electric talents who are off to a strong start to their ACC tag team campaign.

Besides those two, Payton Dunbar was the first to come off the bench, Olivia McGee scored 12 (albeit 1/6 from three), and Edessa Noyan scored seven in a solid 26 minutes. With five freshman and sophomore players, four of whom are from Virginia, Coach Mox has a very strong young core to build on beyond this season.