Another Kentucky women’s basketball player enters NCAA transfer portal
Another player has chosen to leave the Kentucky women’s basketball program.
On Monday afternoon, center Olivia Owens announced she would be entering her name into the NCAA transfer portal, marking the fourth player this offseason to do so.
Owens announced her departure from UK on social media, and said she was entering the transfer portal as a graduate transfer.
In Owens’ announcement, she said she has plans to become an attorney, meaning she will also be enrolling in law school.
Owens, who began her college career at Maryland, appeared in 28 games last season for Kentucky with nine starts, but she was a matchup-dependent player.
She only played double-digit minutes for the Wildcats once in the final month of the season.
While Owens’ departure doesn’t represent a significant loss from a statistical perspective — 3.1 points and 3.0 rebounds per game — it continues to thin UK’s depth in the post, something that was already a problem last season.
UK now has only has two players on its projected roster for next season — Nyah Leveretter and incoming freshman Tionna Herron — who are listed as frontcourt players.
Last week, a trio of Kentucky starters — Dre’una Edwards, Treasure Hunt and Jasmine Massengill — all entered their names into the transfer portal.
Along with the departure of star guard Rhyne Howard to the WNBA, this means Kentucky will be without five players from the 2021-22 team that went 19-12 overall, 8-8 in Southeastern Conference play, won the 2022 SEC Tournament and lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
The SEC Tournament title was UK’s first since 1982.
Kentucky’s incoming recruiting class features five players: Four guards and one post player, Herron.
The class grew from four to five players over the weekend as Kentucky picked up a commitment from guard Kennedy Cambridge.
Kentucky is now projected to have 10 scholarship players on its roster for the 2022-23 season.
They are guards Robyn Benton, Cambridge, Blair Green, Amiya Jenkins, Emma King, Cassidy Jo Rowe, Saniah Tyler and Jada Walker, along with post players Leveretter and Herron.
This story was originally published March 28, 2022 at 1:14 PM.
