IOWA CITY, Iowa — Kymora Johnson scored 28 points, and Sa’Myah Smith added a career-high 23 to go with 11 rebounds for a double-double as No. 10 seed Virginia beat No. 7 seed Georgia, 82-73, in the first round of the NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament Saturday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The Cavaliers (21-11) of the Atlantic Coast Conference, who became the first lower seed to win in this year’s tourney, are back in action on the same court Monday against site host Iowa (27-6). The Big Ten’s second-seeded Hawkeyes won 58-48 against No. 15 seed Fairleigh Dickinson, the Northeast Conference champion.
“There was a lot of adversity in that game, and we had to fight to push it to overtime and then also to do what we did in overtime,” Virginia coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton said. “Once we got to overtime, we knew it was our game. We came out with a lot of urgency.”
Virginia, which became the second team in NCAA women’s tournament history to win a game in the round of 64 after advancing from the First Four, outscored Georgia (22-10) 11-2 in overtime.
“I know that going into (overtime), a lot of us were tired,” Johnson said. “And we had a long stretch of trying to come back and getting back in the game. But once we did, all we were talking about in the huddle before overtime was fight. Fight. Nothing is promised, so fight for tomorrow.”