IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa women’s basketball team could potentially face one of two Power Four teams from down south in seventh-seeded Georgia and tenth-seeded Virginia. While the former features a young roster and an Iowa native for head coach, the latter boasts a homegrown talent leading a team yet to achieve its potential.
Four of Georgia’s five leading scorers are underclassmen. The Bulldogs are led in scoring by second-year guard Dani Carnegie with 18.1 per game, followed by fellow sophomore Mia Woolfolk with 13.1. Despite the relative inexperience, Georgia sits 22-9 overall.
“I feel like it’s a testament to our hard work at the end of the day,” Woolfolk said at media availability Friday morning. “Yes, our age comes into effect in some things, but at the end of the day we’re just basketball players.”
Nevertheless, Georgia has struggled down the stretch, going 4-6 over its last eight games, including a 76-61 loss to Kentucky in the first round of the SEC Tournament. One of the few bright spots was a 76-74 win over No. 5 Vanderbilt, where Carnegie tallied a game-high 29 points on 9-of-15 shooting.
“At our peak, we’re unstoppable,” Carnegie said. “I just feel like when everybody’s on one and clicking at the same time, it’s hard to guard. We just know what we have.”
Carnegie transferred from Georgia Tech over the offseason and has improved her statistics across the board, including points, rebounds, and assists per game. Georgia head coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson’s squad returned to just four players from last season, but with newcomers like Carnegie, roster turnover isn’t much of an issue.
“I think when your best player is the most unselfish player you have on your team, and really wants the team to win and not themselves to win, I think the culture’s in, and that’s what we have right now.”
Abrahamson-Henderson hails from Iowa, graduating from Cedar Rapids Washington High School. She played for Georgia for two seasons before transferring to Iowa, helping the Hawkeyes to a pair of Big Ten regular season titles under head coach C. Vivian Stringer.
Abrahamson-Henderson last visited Carver-Hawkeye Arena back in March 2023, in her first season with the Bulldogs. Georgia lost to Iowa in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The head coach made headlines before the contest with her comments on then-Iowa guard Gabbie Marshall, identifying the former Hawkeye by her “pretty eyes.”
Her words quickly went viral, and while Abrahamson-Henderson said Friday her family is happy to be back in their home state, the coach is more worried about Virginia than a potential second-round rematch with the Hawkeyes.
“Being an Iowan, we just love basketball, period,” Abrahamson-Henderson said. “So I think that’s another reason why this will always be a place the NCAA hosts. But I hope this is the last time we [Georgia] have to come back here. I think it’s more about storylines than anything.”
Virginia Preview
Virginia is 1-0 so far in the tournament after a 57-55 victory over Arizona State. The win marked the Cavaliers’ 20th of the season, their first after dropping four of their last six games. Yet similar to Georgia, the recent hardships saw a promising result: a 74-72 win over No. 8 Louisville.
Virginia’s advancement to the round of 64 was largely due to junior guard Kymora Johnson. Hailing from Charlottesville, Virginia, Johnson led the Cavaliers in scoring with 17 points and iced the affair with the Sun Devils with a late triple. Virginia head coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton said she was trying to send a ball screen Johnson’s way, but the guard waved off the help and delivered.
“That’s what kind of kid she is,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “She knew we needed a big moment, we needed a big shot and she put the team on her back.”
Johnson leads Virginia in points (19 per game), assists (5.9 per game), and steals (2.2 per game). Her head coach lauded Johnson for her versatility, praising her ability to score at all three levels but also her awareness of her teammates.
“She wants to make the right basketball play all the time,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “So if she draws two [defenders] or three, or people are in gaps, she wants to set her teammates up. She enjoys that part of the game more than scoring.”
Following head coach Debbie Ryan stepping down after the 2011 season, Virginia went from tournament regular to qualifying for just one over the next 11 seasons. Agugua-Hamilton took over after four consecutive losing seasons and after finishing her first year at the helm with a 15-15 mark, has posted improved records in the three years since and brought the Cavaliers back to the Big Dance for the first time since 2018.
“Progress is a process, I tell [my team] that all the time,” Agugua-Hamilton said.
Johnson said Virginia has yet to reach its peak, and the star player’s head coach agreed. The Cavaliers have shown fight in some games, but in others didn’t “punch back” in the face of adversity. March Madness is certainly a good test to evaluate the squad’s elevation.
“Obviously, we want to be playing our best basketball right now,” Agugua-Hamilton said. “Tomorrow’s not promised. I think every game now we have an opportunity to reach that. I think our kids are getting hungrier. They’re understanding what it takes to win in March and they’re understanding that we have what it takes.”
Georgia and Virginia face off on Saturday, March 21, at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Tip-off is set for 12:30 p.m. on ESPN2.