‘Recruiting has been phenomenal.’ Elzy’s first full UK class hints at coach’s vision.
For all the confusion — and at times chaos — that has come with becoming the Kentucky women’s basketball head coach, Kyra Elzy has also spent the past year orchestrating the future of the Wildcats program.
This has come by installing her preferred culture in the UK team, and the next extension of that is finding players that fit that mold.
Kentucky’s only offseason additions to its roster in 2021 were freshman guard Jada Walker, who committed to UK under former head coach Matthew Mitchell, and freshman walk-on guard Kristen Crenshaw-Gill, who was a late addition to the team after open tryouts in September.
But you don’t have to look too far ahead to see what Elzy has planned for future seasons in Lexington.
Kentucky’s 2022 recruiting class, the first complete class under Elzy after she was named the permanent head coach last December, features four players that each address a current need for Kentucky.
“We have four talented basketball players, but (also) women of high character off the court,” Elzy said of the class, which was finalized this month. “They believe in this program and what we’re trying to do.”
UK’s four incoming players for the 2022-23 season offer a glimpse at how Elzy wants to lead the Wildcats in what will probably be the post-Rhyne Howard era.
Elzy recruits Kentucky
Central to UK’s future success figures to be a pair of in-state guards with which Kentucky high school basketball fans will be familiar.
Anderson County’s Amiya Jenkins and Shelby Valley’s Cassidy Jo Rowe represent the in-state inclusion in the 2022 signing class.
Jenkins is rated as a four-star guard by ESPN and is one of the favorites to be named Kentucky Miss Basketball this season. She plays AAU basketball for the Kentucky Premier program, which counts Blair Green and Emma King among its alumnae on the current UK roster.
“She is our prototype. She’s athletic. She’s explosive. Can score at all three levels,” Elzy said of Jenkins.
In addition to the scoring prowess possessed by Jenkins, who averaged 17.2 points per game last season as Anderson County reached the state semifinals, it’s Jenkins’ defense that has become her calling card and a major reason why she was a First Team selection to the Herald-Leader’s All-State girls’ basketball team last season.
Anderson County head coach Clay Birdwhistell, now in his third season coaching Jenkins, remembers initially meeting with Jenkins and her mother before Jenkins enrolled at Anderson County, a conversation that focused almost as much on academics as it did on basketball.
“A couple days later (Jenkins) came to an open gym and she got moving and I realized that there’s not many kids in the state of Kentucky that move like her. From there it was all about just what can we do to help her chase her dreams and help her become the best version of herself,” Birdwhistell told the Herald-Leader. “That’s made easier when you have a kid with the character that she has that wants to come in and work every day.”
Birdwhistell believes Jenkins is the best defender in Kentucky.
“She has the natural abilities that you need, but what makes her so special is she’s got some dog in her. She wants that matchup. She’d be so mad at me (that) she couldn’t look at me if I wouldn’t let her go guard whoever we think the best player is (on the other team),” Birdwhistell said. “She wants to make sure that she takes the right angles and that she does the things that we’re asking her to do schematically so she can be a successful defender. You put all those things together and she’s a handful.”
Joining Jenkins as an in-state recruit in the class of 2022 is Rowe, who committed to UK under Mitchell in August 2018.
Rowe, who also played with the Kentucky Premier AAU program, has torn both the ACLs in her left knee and right knee during her high school career.
But despite the injuries and a change at head coach, UK never wavered from its commitment to Rowe.
“That’s probably going to happen two out of 100 times that somebody will stick with one (player) after two ACLs. That speaks highly of the coaches at Kentucky,” said David Tapley, director of the Kentucky Premier AAU program. “If (a recruit) sees a school stick by them, then they know that this school believes in them. What I’ve seen is these kids tend to work harder ... when you do things like that you’re earning these kids’ loyalty.”
“She never wavered, has battled through some injuries, but her work ethic is priceless,” Elzy said of Rowe. “She’s a textbook point guard.”
In addition to her hustle and work ethic, Rowe could also bring some needed distance shooting to the Wildcats.
After the ACL injuries limited Rowe to just six games as a freshman and 19 games as a sophomore at Shelby Valley, Rowe returned to full action as a junior and shot better than 41% from three-point range.
Aside from the on-court attributes provided by Jenkins and Rowe, there is also unquestioned value in having some of the highest-ranked high school recruits from Kentucky staying home for college at the state’s flagship school.
“There’s something about a Kentucky girl wearing Kentucky across their chest,” Elzy said. “They understand what it means to play here, how special this program is and what the people in the state of Kentucky, how much they love it.”
Birdwhistell went a step further and attributed Kentucky’s recent in-state recruiting success directly to Elzy.
“She’s at open gyms, cheering on kids that she had just met that day, or just seen that day. I think it says a lot about who she is as a person and what she’s going to be able to do at the University of Kentucky,” Birdwhistell said. “I think the world of her.”
“It’s really important as the state school and as the head coach at the University of Kentucky that I have great communication and relationships with them,” Elzy said of Kentucky high school coaches. “We are wanting the same thing for Kentucky basketball from grassroots to high school to college to be the best it can be.”
UK adds post presence, explosive guard
Outside of the commonwealth, Kentucky landed a top-70 national recruit as well as a potential future leader of the offense.
Tionna Herron from DeSoto High School in Texas was the first player to commit to UK with Elzy as the full-time head coach, as Herron did so just one week after that announcement.
Herron won a state championship last season with DeSoto in Texas’ largest high school class while averaging 12 points, eight rebounds and three blocks per game, which helped vault her to being the No. 69-ranked player in ESPN’s national class of 2022 rankings.
“It’s a big that we’ve been waiting for,” Elzy said. “Someone that can protect the paint, shot blocker, has great touch around the rim.”
UK’s need for an elite interior presence has been highlighted this season as the Wildcats have just three players in frontcourt positions.
Meanwhile in the backcourt, incoming guard Saniah Tyler from just outside St. Louis is another state champion who will soon be in Lexington.
Tyler guided Incarnate Word Academy, a private Catholic high school that plays a national schedule in Bel-Nor, Missouri, to a perfect 29-0 record last season on the way to earning All-State recognition for the second time.
“She has that dog mentality. She’s explosive. She gets after it defensively,” Elzy said of Tyler.
Tyler, who is rated by ESPN as the 22nd-best point guard in the class of 2022, has been coached for her entire high school career by Dan Rolfes at Incarnate Word.
“When she was a freshman she was playing behind a senior point guard and when she would go in the game, she would make such an impact just by her on-ball defense,” Rolfes told the Herald-Leader. “It was kind of crazy for me to see the energy that she brought just from that. I remember that kind of being one of the first times, and I’ve been coaching a long time, where someone getting up and getting in someone’s grill guarding really got the team going.”
Rolfes said Tyler’s evolution as a point guard has gone from mainly being a driver on offense to now adding a consistent three-point shot.
Tyler’s ability to flourish in Incarnate Word’s fast-paced offense and full-court pressure defense aligns well with what Elzy has said her stylistic vision is at Kentucky.
“We’re trying to get the ball down the court in three to four seconds (on offense), so she does a very good job of pushing tempo,” Rolfes said of Tyler. “Our kids have to be mobile (on defense). They have to be fast and they have to play at a certain pace. When your point guard does that, it just helps the team follow.”
Kamilah Tyler, Saniah’s mother, described her daughter to the Herald-Leader as a music lover and sneakerhead who began showing a passion for basketball in the third grade, but who isn’t the same person off the court as she is on it.
“Off the court Saniah is shy, she doesn’t push any envelopes. She’s easy going (and) outgoing,” Kamilah said. “But on the court it’s like she has tunnel vision. She’s always been a defensive player and the funny thing is Kentucky had been recruiting her since 2017 and that’s what they liked most about her.
“It’s absolutely amazing to see how she’s grown over the years ... so in third grade she’s just running down the court like a chicken with its head cut off, and to see her become poised, it’s just amazing the transformation.”
Similarly to Birdwhistell, Kamilah credited the loyalty of Kentucky’s coaches, in particular associate head coach Niya Butts, in the recruiting process when it came to determining that UK was the right destination for Saniah, despite the change in head coaches from Mitchell to Elzy.
“The recruiting and the courting didn’t stop. (Butts) has been there, so the coaching change didn’t matter,” Kamilah added.
As Elzy approaches the one-year anniversary of being named the full-time UK women’s basketball head coach, she said that while her title has changed, her involvement and the keys to the recruiting process have not.
“I’ve been in the business for 20 years and recruiting is what I did,” Elzy said. “Recruiting has been phenomenal and recruiting to Kentucky has been such a blessing for me, a place that I love and it’s the same for me. I still put my head down, grind and we’ve done really well. We’ll continue to search out players that can help us get to where we’re trying to go.”
Next game
West Virginia at No. 16 Kentucky
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
Live video broadcast: SEC Network Plus (online only)
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Records: West Virginia 4-1, Kentucky 4-1
Series: Kentucky leads 2-1
Last meeting: West Virginia won 80-75 in two overtimes in the semifinals of the WNIT on March 28, 2005, in Lexington.
This story was originally published November 26, 2021 at 7:56 AM.
