In 2018, the powerhouses of ladies’s school basketball turned their consideration to Central Virginia, the place one participant at William Monroe Excessive College had the eye of the complete nation. On the time, Sam Brunelle was the No. 1-ranked general recruit within the class of 2019 in accordance with ESPN. With a lights-out jumper and versatile playmaking skills for her dimension at 6’2″, the Ruckersville, Virginia native had affords from dozens of main convention packages. 

One faculty that reached out to Brunelle through the recruiting course of was Michigan State. Brunelle acquired a telephone name from a Michigan State assistant very early in her highschool profession – so early that at this time, Brunelle cannot recall the precise particulars of the telephone name. However the assistant nonetheless remembers. 

That assistant coach was Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, who now serves as the top coach of the Virginia ladies’s basketball program. Agugua-Hamilton, or “Coach Mox” as she is thought, took one other swing at recruiting Brunelle when she entered the switch portal from Notre Dame final spring. And this time, Coach Mox obtained her. 

When Brunelle arrived in Charlottesville, Coach Mox requested her if she remembered that telephone name from a number of years prior.

“[Coach Mox] recruited me, apparently, after I was actually younger when she was at Michigan State. She requested me if I remembered that. We had like one telephone name. I didn’t truly keep in mind it,” Brunelle stated with fun. “She gave me a tough time about that.” 

Now, Agugua-Hamilton and Brunelle, who’re each Virginia natives, are teaming up within the hopes of rebuilding a once-great Virginia ladies’s basketball program and returning it to its former glory. 

As a local of Ruckersville, Virginia, Brunelle has fond reminiscences of constructing the quick 30-minute journey right down to the Grounds of the College of Virginia in Charlottesville. She grew up an enormous UVA fan and even served as a ball woman at basketball video games at John Paul Jones Enviornment. When Brunelle realized that there was a future for her enjoying basketball, it rapidly turned her dream to play at Virginia. 

Sadly, Brunelle and the Cavaliers could not fairly get the timing proper. 

Within the spring of 2018, when Brunelle was being vigorously pursued by a number of the prime packages within the nation like UConn, South Carolina, Kentucky, and Notre Dame, Virginia was removed from being able to provide its finest effort in direction of recruiting Brunelle. 

UVA had simply misplaced its ladies’s basketball head coach, Joanne Boyle, who stepped down from her place and introduced she was retiring from teaching because of a household matter simply a few days after main Virginia to its first NCAA Event look in practically a decade. As a outcome, UVA athletic director Carla Williams stepped in and was dealing with dwelling visits with potential recruits whereas on the similar time looking for Virginia’s subsequent ladies’s basketball coach. By the point Williams discovered Boyle’s successor, Sam Brunelle had already discovered her new dwelling. 

“Coach Boyle had simply stepped down as I used to be doing dwelling visits and Carla Williams was truly the step-in for my dwelling go to as a result of they didn’t have a coach on the time,” Brunelle stated. “All fingers sort of pointed me at Notre Dame and I don’t remorse that call.”

Though enjoying for Virginia would have been a dream come true for Brunelle, committing to a college that did not have a coach could not actually examine to the chance provided at a faculty like Notre Dame, which received the 2018 NCAA Nationwide Championship led by Corridor of Fame coach Muffet McGraw. Brunelle had already determined that Notre Dame was the suitable place for her earlier than the Irish reduce down the nets on the finish of the 2018 season, however that definitely was a pleasant sweetener. 

The day after Brunelle introduced her dedication to Notre Dame, Virginia introduced the hiring of nine-time WNBA All-Star and four-time WNBA Champion Tina Thompson as the subsequent ladies’s basketball head coach at UVA. 

So far as Brunelle was involved, the door to her enjoying for UVA had closed perpetually. The subsequent few years would current unprecedented and unfathomable challenges for each Brunelle and the Virginia ladies’s basketball program, however these hardships created the circumstances that produced probably the most unbelievable reunion. 

The start of Sam Brunelle’s time in South Bend went about in addition to she may have hoped. She began in all 31 video games, averaged 13.9 factors and 5.8 rebounds per recreation, and earned an All-ACC Freshman Staff choice. 

However that may be the one season Brunelle would play for the legendary Muffet McGraw, who introduced her retirement after 33 years at Notre Dame on the finish of the 2019-2020 season. 

Not solely did Brunelle should attempt to reestablish herself beneath new head coach Niele Ivey, however she additionally started to wrestle with persistent accidents to her shoulder and knee over the subsequent two seasons – to not point out the disruptive results of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Brunelle performed in 49 video games over the subsequent two seasons, however did not begin any video games and noticed her scoring common go right down to a career-low 6.8 factors per recreation in 2021-2022. Her harm troubles worsened on the finish of the season, as Brunelle was pressured to endure a significant shoulder surgical procedure.

“I had an entire labral tear on the finish of final season,” Brunelle stated. “I needed to get like 9 anchors put in. And I’m again in 5 months and that’s outstanding. Most individuals take rather a lot longer than that. I am feeling actually nice.”

A change was additionally wanted from an educational standpoint for Brunelle, who desires to be a instructor when her basketball profession is completed, as Notre Dame doesn’t provide an training program. She wouldn’t depart Notre Dame with no diploma, although, going to excessive lengths to have the ability to graduate this previous summer time after three years. 

“I took 19 credit through the spring semester at Notre Dame so I used to be in a position to graduate,” Brunelle stated. “After which I took three lessons that had been all actually lengthy, actually powerful over the summer time to be sure that I may graduate. I did, so it was price it.” 

Just a few days after the Preventing Irish noticed their season come to an finish with a 66-63 loss to NC State within the Candy Sixteen, Brunelle made the powerful resolution to enter the switch portal, in search of a brand new dwelling.

Whereas Brunelle was practically 700 miles away at Notre Dame, she by no means misplaced observe of what was occurring with the UVA ladies’s basketball program she had cherished and supported since her childhood. However she was saddened to see what occurred to her hometown Hoos. 

“I grew up a UVA fan and I all the time comply with them on social media and all the things and nonetheless did regardless that I went to a distinct faculty,” Brunelle stated. “So I used to be holding tabs whereas I used to be away and it was sort of unhappy to see, particularly due to the quantity of expertise that I knew was right here they usually may have been actually good.”

Because the No. 1 general decide within the inaugural WNBA draft and an icon within the sport of ladies’s basketball for the higher a part of 20 years, Tina Thompson’s basketball expertise and affect couldn’t be denied. However when she was employed as the top coach of the Virginia ladies’s basketball program, the one facet of her resume that was questioned was her lack of teaching expertise. 

Previous to her hiring, Thompson had simply three years of teaching beneath her belt as an assistant at Texas. At Virginia, she must face a number of the prime packages in all of ladies’s basketball within the ACC and he or she must attempt to stabilize a UVA program reeling from unexpectedly shedding its head coach. 

Thompson’s four-year tenure at Virginia was rocky, to say the least. Issues obtained off to an honest sufficient begin, as UVA went 12-19 after which 13-17 in Thompson’s second season, which included a really respectable 8-10 file in ACC play. However then COVID-19 obliterated any momentum this system had at that time. 

COVID issues and accidents usually plagued the group persistently over the subsequent two seasons. And even when the group was wholesome, the Cavaliers simply could not put all of it collectively on the court docket. Virginia ended up enjoying solely 5 video games within the 2020-2021 season, shedding all 5 of them, earlier than suspending the remainder of the marketing campaign. The 2021-2022 season did not go significantly better because the Cavaliers went 5-22 general and 2-16 in ACC play. Unsurprisingly, Virginia fired Tina Thompson shortly after the conclusion of the season. 

With one other pivotal teaching search at hand, Carla Williams employed Amaka Agugua-Hamilton, who is taken into account probably the greatest up-and-coming younger coaches within the recreation. After accumulating practically 15 years of teaching expertise on the ladies’s basketball staffs at VCU, Indiana, Outdated Dominion, and Michigan State – the place she had that transient interplay with a younger Sam Brunelle – “Coach Mox” took her first head teaching job at Missouri State and exploded onto the scene. 

In three seasons main the Girl Bears, Coach Mox turned in a 73-15 general file, received two Missouri Valley Convention common season titles, and led Missouri State to 2 NCAA Event appearances, together with a visit to the Candy Sixteen in 2021. 

As a local of Herndon, Virginia, Agugua-Hamilton grew up a UVA ladies’s basketball fan and personally witnessed this system’s most interesting years beneath Debbie Ryan. As such, she is accustomed to what Virginia ladies’s basketball could be and understands what it can take to return the Cavaliers to their successful methods. Step one in that course of was clear: deliver dwelling one of the vital gifted basketball gamers to ever come out of Central Virginia. 

When Sam Brunelle entered the switch portal on March thirtieth, Coach Mox and the Cavaliers had been the primary to achieve out to her a couple of potential switch to UVA. 

“As quickly as I hit the switch portal, they had been the primary folks to achieve out to me and it was just like the snap of a finger – I had a textual content or a name from one among them,” Brunelle recalled. “Coach Mox can be from Virginia, so she takes delight in holding ‘dwelling children’ dwelling. And I assume when she noticed that I used to be within the switch portal, that was a possibility to grab a child again,” she added with a smile.

Brunelle had scheduled three official visits for the start of April to Virginia, NC State, and Penn State and had deliberate to take no less than these three visits earlier than making a choice. However after taking her first official go to to UVA, Brunelle rapidly realized that the visits to these different colleges would not be vital. 

“UVA was the primary official I took. I truly didn’t know I used to be going to commit whereas I used to be right here, however I cherished each ounce of it,” stated Brunelle. “I obtained that very same feeling I obtained after I knew Notre Dame was proper for me in highschool and I knew if I obtained that feeling once more, then it was the suitable place for me. It simply so occurred to be dwelling… I dedicated that Saturday that I used to be leaving from my official right here.”

Brunelle loves Notre Dame and does not remorse a second she spent there regardless of the entire difficulties she confronted in her time in South Bend. The harm troubles, COVID-19 issues, a significant teaching change, and her tutorial state of affairs – all of these challenges positioned her on the trail that led her again dwelling to Virginia. 

“It’s very surreal the way it’s all labored out,” Brunelle stated. “I’m a really agency believer in ‘issues occur for causes’ they usually undoubtedly did as a result of I by no means would have thought I’d be capable to have the possibility to place that jersey on right here. And with the ability to try this now and with the ability to assist rebuild and be a chunk of the puzzle that may get UVA ladies’s basketball again to the place it was could be very particular… It is undoubtedly full circle now and I believe it is labored out the way it was all the time presupposed to.”

With plans to get a grasp’s in training and in addition pursue athletic administration, Brunelle says she intends to remain at Virginia for the subsequent two years, exercising her fourth and fifth seasons of eligibility. In these two years, Brunelle has excessive hopes for what the Virginia ladies’s basketball group can obtain. 

“We’ve a lot potential,” Brunelle stated. “We could possibly be actually, actually good if we put all of it collectively like we’re doing now, piece by piece, day-to-day.”

With Coach Mox on the helm and gifted gamers like Sam Brunelle decided to show this program round, the instant way forward for Virginia ladies’s basketball could be very shiny.