Heralded transfer granted immediate eligibility for Kentucky women’s basketball
Help is on the way even sooner than expected for the University of Kentucky women’s basketball team.
Olivia Owens, who transferred to UK from Maryland in June, has been granted immediate eligibility by the NCAA and will take the court for the Wildcats this season. She’ll have at least three years of eligibility at UK.
“I am so excited for the next chapter and looking forward to playing with my teammates this season,” Owens said in a UK news release. “Let’s go, BBN!”
The news comes one day after the NCAA Division I Council granted winter sports athletes an extra year of eligibility and formally proposed new rules which will allow all college athletes to transfer once in their careers without sitting out a year.
Owens, a 6-foot-4 center who was a five-star prospect coming out of high school, will add size and speed to a UK frontcourt that in recent years has often struggled to match up with bigger opponents.
“Olivia is a phenomenal person and outstanding basketball player. We are so happy for her that she will be able to compete this year with her teammates,” UK head coach Matthew Mitchell said. “She has worked hard since arriving on campus to be able to play this season and I know her teammates and all of us are overjoyed for her that she will get that opportunity.”
An ESPN recruiting profile of Owens described her as a “strong, physical low-post performer with interior footwork, powers to rim with efficiency; mobile in transition; emerging face-up attack; high motor effort on glass; among the elite post prospects in the class of 2018.”
Owens was ranked the No. 26 player in the recruiting class of 2018 by All Star Girls Report and No. 34 by ESPN, which rated her the nation’s No. 5 post player. She appeared in just 16 games as a freshman at Maryland, averaging 1.5 points and 1.3 rebounds per game. Owens had to sit out the 2019-20 season as a redshirt year because of mononucleosis.
“She obviously has a lot of intangibles that you cannot teach, like elite size and strength in the post, which is going to help us tremendously,” Matthew Mitchell said of the Albany, N.Y., native upon her decision to join up with Kentucky in June.
Kentucky also welcomes 2019 Pac-12 Freshman of the Year Dre’una Edwards to this season’s lineup after she sat out last season following her transfer from Utah.
There’s no word yet on whether Kentucky will seek waivers for the other two players who transferred into the program in the offseason. Jazmine Massengill, a 6-foot guard, transferred to the Wildcats after starting 30 of 31 games for Tennessee last season. Robyn Benton, a 5-foot-9 guard, averaged 10.1 points at Auburn last year.
The Wildcats will be led again by national player of the year candidate Rhyne Howard. She will be joined by holdovers Blair Green, Emma King, Keke McKinney, Chasity Patterson, Kameron Roach and Tatyana Wyatt. Newcomers joining Owens and Edwards will be freshmen Treasure Hunt — a McDonald’s All-American — Nyah Leveretter and Erin Toller.
This story was originally published October 15, 2020 at 10:09 AM.
