Kentucky women’s basketball: Who could be staying, going and coming to join the Cats
With the 2021-22 Kentucky women’s basketball season now complete, it’s time to start projecting what next season’s Wildcats may look like.
Kyra Elzy’s team had only 10 scholarship players on its roster last season. Of those 10, only nine played after Blair Green suffered a season-ending Achilles injury in October.
During February’s regular season-ending win over Auburn, only one Kentucky player went through the pomp and circumstance of Senior Day ceremonies: Legendary guard Rhyne Howard.
Then on March 25, a trio of Wildcats starters — Dre’una Edwards, Treasure Hunt and Jazmine Massengill — entered the NCAA transfer portal.
On March 28, another UK player — center Olivia Owens — announced she would be transferring out of the program.
Kentucky will be welcoming in a five-player recruiting class this summer, as well as the addition of one graduate transfer.
In order of projected college eligibility for the 2022-23 season, here’s a look at which players you may expect to see or not see at Memorial Coliseum this fall.
Freshmen
The 2022 recruiting class will be Elzy’s largest so far as Kentucky head coach.
It consists of five players: Guards Kennedy Cambridge, Amiya Jenkins, Cassidy Jo Rowe and Saniah Tyler, as well as post player Tionna Herron.
Cambridge, a 5-8 combo guard from Nashville, Tennessee, committed to Kentucky on March 26 after narrowing her list of schools to Auburn, UK and Ole Miss.
Cambridge is part of a prestigious basketball family. She has a brother, Devan, who just entered his name into the transfer portal after playing for three seasons at Auburn.
She has an older sister, Jordyn, who is a star player at Vanderbilt and just finished her senior season as the Southeastern Conference’s steals leader. And she has a younger sister, Jaloni, who is considered a top prospect in the class of 2024.
Jenkins, a standout at Anderson County High School, was recently named Miss Kentucky Basketball and will be the 11th all-time UK player with that designation when she makes her Wildcats debut. Jenkins is the most recent commit of the quartet, announcing her plans to come to Lexington in October.
Rowe is a longtime Kentucky commit from Shelby Valley High School. Rowe committed to Kentucky in August 2018, when former head coach Matthew Mitchell led the program. Rowe has overcome several injuries throughout her high school career, including two torn ACLs, a rib injury and recent surgery for a wrist injury suffered during this year’s high school district tournament.
Tyler committed to UK in late July, and has been a serial winner during her high school career at Incarnate Word, a private Catholic high school located in a northern suburb of St. Louis. Tyler was first offered a UK scholarship in September 2020 when Mitchell was the head coach.
Herron will bring a much-needed interior presence to Kentucky after a championship career at DeSoto High School in DeSoto, Texas. Herron’s commitment occurred late in December 2020, shortly after Elzy was named the full-time UK head coach. Herron, who is nicknamed “Tree,” watched UK play in person last season during a road loss at LSU in January.
Sophomores
Kentucky’s lone freshman last season was Jada Walker. The feisty point guard proved to be an indispensable part of the Kentucky team.
Walker posted the following stats, which had the following team rankings: 10.4 points per game (third), 35.5% three-point shooting (third), 27.6 minutes played per game (fourth) and 47 steals (second).
Walker is Kentucky’s point guard of the future, with Elzy frequently praising her mentality and effectiveness, especially on the defensive end.
Juniors
Kentucky had two players that were sophomores last season, but the only one expected to return is Nyah Leveretter.
Leveretter went from a rarely used bench player as a freshman to a regular starter for UK by the time her sophomore season ended. She missed the first five games of the season with a non-COVID illness, but then began to get regular rotation minutes.
Leveretter started the final 10 games of the season for Kentucky, with her heart and hustle often overshadowing her statistics. Progression needs to come around the rim and on the offensive end, but Leveretter will retain a spot in UK’s frontcourt next season.
Seniors and more
Three players are expected to return for Kentucky next season that would be classified as a senior or more: Emma King, Robyn Benton and Blair Green.
King was the only true junior on the 2021-22 UK team. Like Owens, King’s playing time fluctuated based on roster availability and specific opponent matchups. In the final month of the season, King, a guard from Lincoln County High School, played 10 or more minutes just once.
There were still moments when Kentucky needed King and she rose to the challenge: In a January road win at Auburn, which UK had just seven scholarship players for, King scored a career-high 10 points.
Guards Robyn Benton and Blair Green were listed as seniors last season, and both can return for more college basketball if they choose.
Green didn’t play last season due to an Achilles injury. Benton transferred to UK from Auburn after her sophomore season.
Both players still have college eligibility remaining since the NCAA granted fall and winter sports athletes an extra year of eligibility due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Additionally, Green could receive a medical redshirt, which would give her two more years.
Kentucky will also be welcoming an experienced interior presence to the team this season via the NCAA transfer portal.
Forward Adebola Adeyeye, a former four-year player at Buffalo, will be joining the UK program as a graduate transfer.
Adeyeye, who is a 6-foot-2 post player from Canada, was a consistent starter during her time at Buffalo.
She is the first player from the NCAA transfer portal to come to Kentucky with Elzy as head coach.
Not returning
There are five UK scholarship players from last season’s team, four of whom were regular starters, who aren’t expected to be back with the Wildcats.
Rhyne Howard will leave after four college seasons and head to the professional ranks.
She dazzled throughout her four seasons with the Wildcats, rewriting program record books and collecting individual accolades. Howard was the only UK player who went through Senior Day ceremonies during what was billed as “Rhyne Howard Day” at Memorial Coliseum.
Howard was the top pick in the WNBA Draft on April 11.
On March 25, three other UK starters put their names into the NCAA transfer portal: Guards Treasure Hunt and Jazmine Massengill and forward Dre’una Edwards.
Hunt was a sophomore last season and is an oversized guard that played in the post for UK because of the lack of post depth on the roster. Elzy frequently spoke about Hunt’s ability to space the floor, but that rarely translated on the court.
Hunt made just 25.8% of her attempted three-pointers last season (17 of 66) and also struggled from the free-throw line, converting just 53.2% of the time (42 of 79). But as the season progressed, so did Hunt’s comfort with playing on the inside in the Southeastern Conference.
Two of Hunt’s best performances of the season came in wins over LSU (13 points, seven rebounds) and Tennessee (11 points, four rebounds) as Kentucky stormed to its first SEC Tournament title since 1982. Hunt started 29 of the 30 games she played in for the Cats last season.
Edwards, who was a redshirt junior, was twice suspended by Elzy last season. UK went 1-4 in games that Edwards missed due to suspension.
Outside of the consistent, expected presence of Howard, Edwards became the most important player on the Kentucky team last season, with her ability to score, rebound and offer a versatile and emotional presence. Edwards was the heartbeat of the Kentucky team.
Massengill, who was a senior, transferred to UK after spending her first two college seasons at Tennessee. She became a dependable point guard presence for the Wildcats, and boasted one of the best assist-to-turnover ratios in the country.
As good as Massengill was at point guard, though, the handwriting was on the wall for her future in Lexington thanks to the emergence of Walker as a freshman star.
On March 28, center Olivia Owens announced she would be leaving the Kentucky program as a graduate transfer.
Owens was a redshirt junior last season who began her college career at Maryland. Owens was a matchup-dependent player whose playing time varied based on roster availability. Her most productive games came during the late January stretch when Kentucky’s roster was at its thinnest due to injuries and suspension.
At 6-4, Owens was the tallest player on last season’s UK roster. The incoming Herron is also 6-4.
Elzy will now have to replace four regular starters from last season’s team, and plenty of production for the Wildcats.
The quartet of outgoing starters — Edwards, Howard, Hunt and Massengill — accounted for the following amount of UK statistics from last season: 66.56% of points scored, 60.12% of rebounds, 68.18% of assists, 60.32% of steals, 65.75% of three-pointers made and 64.12% of blocks.
This story was originally published March 25, 2022 at 7:57 AM.
