The college basketball transfer portal closed on Tuesday, but there are still hundreds of players in the portal looking to find a new home. Amaka Agugua-Hamilton and the Virginia women’s basketball program could still add a few more transfers in the coming days and weeks, but let’s take a moment to summarize all of the roster changes that have taken place for the Cavaliers so far this offseason.
Projected to return (6): Kymora Johnson, Paris Clark, Olivia McGhee, Breona Hurd, Yonta Vaughn, Jillian Brown
Exhausted eligibility (1): Taylor Lauterbach
Transfer Departures (7): Latasha Lattimore, Edessa Noyan, Payton Dunbar, Casey Valenti-Paea, RyLee Grays, Kamryn Kitchen, Hawa Doumbouya
Transfer Additions (5): Adeang Ring (UCF), Caitlin Weimar (NC State), Sa’Myah Smith (LSU), Romi Levy (USF), Raiane Dias Dos Santos (Florida State)
Incoming freshmen (1): Gabby White
Let’s start with taking a look at who the Cavaliers lost from the 2024-2025 roster. The only player set to exhaust her eligibility was graduate center Taylor Lauterbach, who played in 24 games with nine starts last season, but averaged less than 10 minutes per game and scored just 65 total points. Virginia had seven departures to the transfer portal this offseason, some more significant than others.
Most notably, UVA lost its starting front court tandem of Latasha Lattimore and Edessa Noyan. Lattimore, who was Virginia’s second-leading scorer at 14.3 points per game and leading rebounder (8.2 rpg) and shot blocker (2.2 bpg), entered the transfer portal for the third time in her collegiate career and transferred to Ole Miss. Noyan, meanwhile, who arrived at Virginia in the same class at Kymora Johnson and Olivia McGhee and played in 54 games with 26 starts over the last two seasons, entered the portal and transferred to Indiana.
Two of UVA’s freshmen from last season also portaled, with Payton Dunbar transferring to Providence after playing in 15 games as a true freshman this season and former Top 100 recruit Kamryn Kitchen transferring to Arizona after redshirting her first and only season at Virginia. 6’7″ center Hawa Doumbouya also redshirted this season after transferring from Maryland and, similarly to Kitchen, entered the portal without ever playing a game for UVA, ultimately staying in the Commonwealth and signing with VCU.
Former North Carolina transfer RyLee Grays played in 23 games this season at Virginia, but did not see the floor in any of UVA’s final seven games of the season before entering the transfer portal and committing to Tulsa. Casey Valenti-Paea, who transferred to UVA from Long Beach State last summer, played in 30 of Virginia’s 32 games this season. Valenti-Paea remains in the portal as the only Cavalier who has yet to announce her new destination.
All told, Virginia lost 48.1% of its minutes and 40.9% of its scoring from last year’s roster.
The Cavaliers are expected to return a talented group of guards and wings headlined by Kymora Johnson, who became the first UVA sophomore to be named a First-Team All-ACC selection since 2001 after ranking sixth in the league in scoring (17.9 ppg) and tied for first in assists (5.8 apg). Virginia also returns Paris Clark, who averaged 10.3 points, 4.8 rebounds, 3.1 assists, and 2.0 steals per game last season. UVA will hope to see big leaps from Olivia McGhee (7.7 ppg) and Breona Hurd, who was Virginia’s fourth-leading scorer at 9.4 points per game and third-leading rebounder at 5.0 boards per game as a true freshman.
Virginia should also get former Northwestern transfer Jillian Brown back from injury after she missed the entirety of last season. One question mark is the status of Yonta Vaughn, who played just nine games last season as she dealt with injury most of the year. When healthy, Vaughn gives UVA another capable playmaking point guard and allows Johnson to play off-ball. Vaughn could claim a medical redshirt for the 2024-2025 season, which would give her two years of eligibility remaining.
Virginia’s need for front court pieces reached the level of desperation following the departures of Latasha Lattimore and Edessa Noyan. In turn, the Cavaliers have prioritized size in their transfer acquisitions so far, with four of their five transfer additions standing 6’2″ or taller.
Central Florida transfer Adeang Ring is a 6’5″ forward originally from Sydney, Australia who played 23 games last season for the Black Knights and averaged 12.5 minutes played per game. “Adeang has so much untapped potential and could ultimately be a double-double kind of kid,” Coach Mox said. “Her ceiling is very high, and I can’t wait to get to work with her.”
Caitlin Weimar transferred to NC State last summer after earning two Patriot League Defensive Player of the Year awards and one Patriot League Player of the Year award at Boston University, where she averaged 18.7 points, 10.6 rebounds, and 2.8 blocks per game in her last healthy season. She never played a game for the Wolfpack, missing the entire 2024-2025 season after having hip surgery. The 6’4″ forward will look to get back to form with the Cavaliers next season.
Another international product, 6’3″ guard Romi Levy (Herzliya, Israel) comes to Virginia after spending the last two seasons at South Florida, where she was the AAC Newcomer of the Year and an All-AAC Second Team selection in the 2023-2024 season after averaging 14.7 points, 4.8 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game. Levy was the AAC Preseason Player of the Year this past season, but did not quite live up to those expectations. She’ll look to get back to playing her best basketball with a fresh start at Virginia.
Virginia brought in a player with championship pedigree in LSU’s Sa’Myah Smith, a 6’2″ forward who played in all 36 games and was named to the SEC All-Freshman Team in the 2022-2023 season, helping the Tigers win their first-ever national championship. After suffering a torn ACL early in the following season, Smith came back and played 36 games with 28 starts this past season, averaging 6.6 points, 6.4 rebounds, and 1.4 blocks per game and scoring 20+ points in back-to-back NCAA Tournament games last month.
Finally, Virginia bolstered its guard depth with the addition of Florida State transfer Raiane Dias Dos Santos, a 5’9″ guard who began her career at Gulf Coast State, where she averaged 11.8 points per game as a freshman. Last season with the Seminoles, Dias Dos Santos played in 31 of FSU’s 33 games with one start and averaged 2.6 points and 1.2 rebounds per game.
It’s possible that Virginia could still add another player or two in the coming weeks and it would not be surprising to see Coach Mox and company chase another experienced forward or center. But with the pieces Virginia has so far, we can begin to attempt to project UVA’s lineup and rotation for the 2025-2026 season.
Starters
Kymora Johnson
Paris Clark
Breona Hurd
Sa’Myah Smith
Caitlin Weimar
Bench
Olivia McGhee
Romi Levy
Adeang Ring
Jillian Brown
Raiane Dias Dos Santos
Yonta Vaughn
Gabby White
We’re keeping track of all of Virginia’s transfer portal activity this offseason, including Cavaliers entering the portal and UVA’s pursuit of transfer targets. See our transfer portal tracker here: Virginia Women’s Basketball Transfer Portal: Latest News and Updates
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
