DALLAS — Georgia Amoore was 5 years old the first time she set foot on a basketball court. Her cousin’s team ran into foul trouble and subsequently ran out of players, so they turned to Amoore.
No sneakers? No problem. Amoore took the court in flip-flops.
On Friday, she will lead the Virginia Tech Hokies to their first Final Four appearance in program history. There won’t be any flip-flops, but there will be Nikes.
Amoore, from Ballarat, Australia, has become a breakout star in the N.C.A.A. tournament, dominating the 3-point line and dancing across the court with a buoyancy and rhythm distinctly her own.
“She came here, and immediately I knew we had something special,” Virginia Tech Coach Kenny Brooks said on Thursday. “Her demeanor is one of confidence. The kids will follow her. She’s like the Pied Piper. If she said, ‘Let’s do this,’ the kids will do it. She’s the funniest kid on the team. She’s the most quick-witted kid on the team. And she’s our leader.”
Over the past year, Amoore and teammates Elizabeth Kitley, Taylor Soule, Kayana Traylor and Cayla King have transformed their little-known program into a top-seeded team. The Hokies entered the tournament 31-4, with the most wins in team history.
Amoore, a junior point guard, is key to that foundation. She was the first Virginia Tech women’s basketball player to record a triple-double, and she set the program record for assists this year. She has scored 114 3-pointers this season, far more than anyone else on her team and the third most in Division I — behind only the indomitable Caitlin Clark of Iowa and Taylor Mikesell of Ohio State.
While Amoore averages 16.3 points, 5 assists and 3 rebounds a game, she opened the N.C.A.A. tournament with a clear message, scoring a combined 96 points in the first four games alone. Along the way, she overcame Ohio State’s grizzly defense, the same defense that forced 25 turnovers on UConn.
Did we mention she’s only 5-foot-6?
“I don’t want this year to end, I don’t want this season to end,” Amoore said. “Going forward, just having the confidence that we can achieve all of this when it comes March time — nothing’s impossible.”
Amoore has come a long way from playing basketball in flip-flops. But basketball wasn’t always the dream. Growing up in Ballarat, about 70 miles west of Melbourne, Amoore didn’t have ESPN to watch American basketball games, she said, and tried out different sports including Australian football.
“I used to be really fast, and boys would grab my ponytail to stop me, so I’ve definitely learned a lot from that,” she said. “In terms of toughness, football is purely about tackling and dodging all those instances. So it definitely helped me be tough and taught me that, when I get hit, get up, test it out, and then go out if you’re really hurt.”
By the time she got to high school, she settled into basketball and excelled. Amoore bounced from club team to club team, eventually earning a spot on the Australian national team at different youth levels.
Eric Hayes, her coach on the Ballarat Rush, thought “the sky was going to be the limit” for Amoore.
“She’s tiny, so you just don’t know what that’s going to look like,” he said. “But she just knew she was always going to give herself the best chance to do really well. No one here is surprised.”
Hayes described Amoore’s style as dynamic, quick, bouncy, active and strong. But her greatest asset on the court is her attitude.
“She plays with joy, she just plays with this happiness, and she’s having fun,” he said. “She drops a dime to one of her teammates and she’s just as pumped doing that as she is knocking down a 3.”
And size isn’t a limitation for her.
“I think it’s hard for anybody to guard her,” Hayes said, recalling playing one-on-one with her and struggling, though he is 6-foot-3 and a former player. “I couldn’t stay in front of her.”
After considering offers from Virginia Tech and the University of Portland, where her cousin played, Amoore arrived in Blacksburg, Va., in January 2020; she and the 6-foot-6 Kitley instantly struck up a friendship. Today, they move together across the court like old friends who finish each other’s sentences. Perhaps that’s because of the amount of time they have spent together: As the world went into lockdown during the early days of the pandemic, Amoore moved in with Kitley and her family.
Kitley, a senior, averages 18.2 points and 10.7 rebounds a game, and is one of the leading blockers in the game with 77 this season. Brooks has compared each of Kitley and Amoore to Batman, and called the other “a tremendous Robin,” depending on who’s taking the starring role at the moment.
“They don’t care — they do not care,” Brooks said last weekend. “When Georgia wins, Liz is jumping up and down. When Liz wins something, Georgia is jumping up and down.
“Coaching them is a joy because they don’t pout when they don’t get the ball. They share it. We call our offense like a boomerang offense. You pass it, it will come back to you.”
Amoore grew up admiring her fellow Australian basketball players Leilani Mitchell and Lauren Jackson, whose jersey hangs from the rafters at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, where Virginia Tech played last weekend in the regional competition. But it was Ezi Magbegor, a center for the Seattle Storm, whom Amoore reached out to before the Hokies’ round-of-16 game against Tennessee. Virginia Tech was using the Storm’s locker room, and Amoore wanted to know which locker belonged to Magbegor.
The two had followed each other’s careers and growth in Australia, Magbegor said. She wasn’t surprised to see Amoore reach the biggest tournament of the year: Amoore scored a career-high 29 points that night.
“She’s just so poised with the basketball,” Magbegor said. “She does things in her own time — she doesn’t really let the defense dictate her offensive game. People have been able to see her play and see her take big shots and just lead her team the way that she has. It’s really exciting.”
These days, Amoore is studying sociology in school when she’s not on the court. She is listening to a lot of electronic dance music to get her pumped up. After she slips on her sneakers, she always tops off her playlist with “Talk That Talk” by Rihanna.
“Then I’m ready to go,” Amoore said.
Kris Rhim contributed reporting.