Virginia Cavaliers Kymora Johnson
Kymora Johnson has 141 assists this season and she posted 11 of them during a triple-double at Pittsburgh. ~ File Photo by Erin Farina/Erin Farina Photography for TheSabre.com

In need of a win to stop a two-game slide and playing with a limited rotation, the Virginia women’s basketball team needed to find a little something extra Sunday. Kymora Johnson delivered with a historical performance.

The sophomore guard poured in 20 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists to help secure an 80-67 road win at Pittsburgh. That put her in some elite company at UVA. She’s only the second player in program history and the fourth player overall in school history to post a triple-double in a Cavalier uniform. Dawn Staley is the only other women’s player to accomplish that feat, something she did twice in 1991, while Ralph Sampson and Bill Miller got it done for the men’s program.

Johnson grew up in Charlottesville and played high school basketball at St. Anne’s-Belfield a mere two miles away from John Paul Jones Arena so she was definitely counting her blessings to join someone like the legendary Staley in the record books.

“I’m just really blessed to be in good company,” Johnson said. “I mean Dawn Staley. Everybody knows who that is. Everyone when you say her name, it’s like ‘Oh my gosh.’ I’m just blessed to have this opportunity, blessed to be in the books, and blessed to be in the books, and blessed to have teammates who helped me achieve this feat.”

Johnson’s teammates certainly helped her get the triple-double and also made sure it came in a winning effort. Latasha Lattimore posted a double-double of her own with 30 points and 11 rebounds, while four other Hoos scored in the game. Johnson dished out assists to four different players.

As the day unfolded, she wasn’t really aware that she was getting close to the triple-double. Looking back, she realized her teammates were pushing her toward it, though.

“My teammates kind of hinted at it,” Johnson said. “At one point, they said ‘Just get five more rebounds’ or something and I was like ‘Huh?’ and I didn’t really put it together, but was like ‘OK, yeah, sure.’”

The start of the game didn’t really foreshadow such a big outing necessarily. Johnson didn’t score until 1:14 remained in the first quarter and she missed her first four attempts. Her afternoon included some shots that missed badly too, including four airballs by her own recollection. Eventually, she got some shots to go down and she made 8-8 free throws to get to 20 points for the 10th time this season.

But when the offense didn’t click instantly, Johnson shifted her focus. That may have helped her end up with double digits in the other two categories. Already wanting to be involved in the rebounding, she put her attention there and on setting up teammates. Those numbers eventually added up.

“Especially at the Pitt game, I wasn’t scoring a lot at the beginning and I was like I’m going to find something that’s working and it was rebounding and assisting,” Johnson said.

In the end, Johnson created a lifetime memory. It’s something she had dreamed of prior to playing on the ACC stage and joining Staley is hard to top given her status in the women’s basketball world.

It turns out, Johnson wasn’t the only one who dreamed of the moment. Virginia coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton actually shared a story with Johnson during practice earlier in the week before the history-making day arrived.

“Oh yeah, for sure, forever, for the longest time,” Johnson said. “I told this to the media after the game, we had practice the other day and Coach Mox came up to me before practice and was like ‘I had a dream last night that you had a triple-double, 27, 10, and 10’ and then I actually went and had a triple-double so it was kind of cool to see that come to life.”

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