What can fans expect from Kentucky women’s basketball’s freshmen as SEC play looms?
Despite a late-March arrival, Kenny Brooks and his coaching staff managed to assemble a roster in which he and his staff could feel confident.
He sought help from the transfer portal, bringing with him players including All-America point guard Georgia Amoore and promising underclassman center Clara Strack from Virginia Tech, plus former Charlotte leading scorer Dazia Lawrence, former top-10 prospect Teonni Key and sharpshooting junior college transfer Amelia Hassett — all of whom have combined for the vast majority of Kentucky’s minutes and production during its 10-1 campaign, and helped slowly reignite an excitement for the program around Big Blue Nation.
Those five signings proved to be massive wins for Brooks and his staff, who had just 21.8% of last season’s Wildcats minutes and 19.8% of their scoring to work with, as UK only returned junior guards Cassidy Rowe and Saniah Tyler for its new era.
Additionally, Jordan Obi and Dominika Paurová — a pair of 6-foot-1 guards with big-game experience from Penn and Oregon State, respectively — were supposed to add comfortable depth and reliable offense to the new-look Wildcats. However, lower-leg injuries sustained during the offseason meant a shorter bench and, therefore, as conference play fast approaches, an increasing need for additional help from the reserves, who will only face stronger and more consistent competition come January.
“It’s just a matter of them continuing to get reps and getting comfortable with each other,” Brooks said. “Playing with the kids who play a lot. And so, when I look at it, the players that are having to contribute from there, we didn’t really have them penciled in for prominent roles going into the season. And that’s no discredit to them. It’s just that we felt like, when the ink dried on the last scholarship offer in the spring, that we were going to be a really deep team. But then when you lose Jordan Obi, and you lose Dom, it really forces you to do something different.”
Brooks signed a trio of freshmen for his inaugural season in Lexington — onetime Virginia Tech commitment Lexi Blue, the No. 40 overall prospect in the class of 2024; Clara Silva, a highly touted Portuguese center with FIBA experience; and Canadian guard Tanah Becker, a holdover from former head coach Kyra Elzy’s 2024 recruiting class who chose to stick around and play for Brooks.
Could any of these newcomers break out and step up in the second half of the season? Or will UK continue to rely on its more experienced players to get the job done? Through 11 games played, only three Wildcats outside of the starting five have averaged more than six minutes per contest — Rowe (16.2), whom Brooks has used as an additional point guard or off-ball option alongside Amoore, Silva (14.2) and Blue (9.2).
Here’s what Brooks had to say about each of his freshman, and what fans might be able to expect going forward from Becker, Blue and Silva.
Tanah Becker
Becker, who graduated from Lincoln Prep in Hamilton, Ontario, before spending the 2023-24 season at Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for a prep year, is averaging just 4.2 minutes, 1.8 points and 0.3 rebounds per game over the course of four contests.
The 6-foot-1 guard’s career highs for points and minutes came in the Wildcats’ first game of the season, a 98-43 rout of South Carolina Upstate. Against the Spartans, Becker contributed five points (including one 3-pointer) on 2-for-2 shooting from the field in seven minutes on the floor.
According to Brooks, Becker has potential but will need time to make a true difference for Kentucky.
“Tanah is young and she exudes athleticism,” Brooks said. “She does some things that nobody else on our team can do, you know, she can get downhill, she’s quick. I think she has the possibility of becoming a really good defender. She’s just learning on the fly. And I would love to say that, you know, we could put her out there, and she’s ready, but she’s not ready for the schematics of basketball. She’s not ready for the physicality. She’s not ready for the conditioning yet. And again, she probably would have been a candidate to redshirt, you know, bringing her in, and if we would have been full and healthy, but, you’re trying to throw her out there to see if you can get a spark from her somehow, some way. But just trying to build confidence with her, within herself, and just understanding that it’s a fast game, but she’s got potential, but it’s just, I think it’s a little ways off.”
Lexi Blue
When Blue, an effective wing in high school for Lake Highland Prep in Orlando, Florida, flipped her commitment from Virginia Tech to Kentucky, she became the highest-ranking high school signing since ex-Cat Tionna Herron, the No. 69 overall prospect in the class of 2022.
Blue is averaging 1.7 points on 26.9% shooting from the field (7-for-26) and 1.5 rebounds in 9.2 minutes over the course of 10 games played. Her career-best game came in UK’s dominant victory over Queens (N.C.) on Dec. 9, during which Blue logged six points (2-for-4 from the field and 2-for-2 at the the free-throw line), plus three rebounds, one assist and one block in just over 21 minutes of playing time. Brooks said after the game that Blue is the working hard to improve, and that her growth is going to serve as an important part of the team’s future.
“She’s a freshman,” Brooks said. “The best thing about freshmen, they become sophomores. But you got to give them time. You got to let her play through it. And I thought she did a much better job (against Queens). She had a couple good days of practice leading up to it, a different mindset. And so she’s going to have to play through it. She really is. And, you know, we believe in her. I think it’s just a matter of her having a little bit of success. She saw the ball go in the basket a couple times. And so I think she’s going to be able to to build off of this. And obviously, with the short bench, we need as much help as we can get. And she’s the main character to help us do it.”
The only game in which Blue hasn’t seen the floor came in UK’s Dec. 20 victory over Belmont, a difficult, comeback win wherein Brooks relied on each of his starters for at least 30 minutes and only subbed in Rowe, Tyler and Silva. Brooks noted that he’d wanted to give Blue minutes against the Bruins but that her age and inexperience caused him to play it safe.
“Really wanted to give Lexi Blue a little bit of opportunity (against Belmont),” Brooks said. “But it’s so hard with the COVID era. And you have 20-something-year-olds, 23-year-olds out there, and they had a couple graduate transfers out there, and then you putting a freshman out there, you know, it’s tough. Yeah, I thought it was going to be pretty good with the COVID stuff. And then all of a sudden, all this junior college stuff was coming up. So I don’t know when it’s going to balance back out, but I have to trust them.”
Clara Silva
It’s hard to miss Silva — a talented, 6-foot-7 prospect who played with Unicaja Málaga, a professional team in the South of Spain from the ages of 14 to 18. She also has years of experience with the Portuguese Junior National Team, and, according to Brooks, Silva is still adjusting to the NCAA style of play.
“Clara Silva, really, is understanding the physicality of American basketball and trying to get used to it,” Brooks said recently.
Silva is the only non-starter other than Rowe to play in all 11 of the Wildcats’ games this season, during which she’s averaging 5.5 points and 3.0 rebounds in 14.2 minutes per contest. In UK’s first two contests of the year, against South Carolina Upstate and Northern Kentucky, Silva delivered 18 points and 14 points, respectively, in 23 minutes on the floor in both games, and, for her efforts, was named the SEC Freshman of the Week.
Against then-ranked Illinois on Nov. 27, Silva contributed a much-needed six points on 60% shooting from the field (3-for-5), plus six rebounds in 17 minutes of playing time. Brooks called the performance “the first sign of what we need from her,” and highlighted the importance of an effective Silva in conjunction with players like Strack and Key.
“We’ve been barking at her to be a little bit more aggressive,” Brooks said. “A little bit quicker to the basketball and what we have to understand is she is still making the adjustment from international basketball to American basketball, and she didn’t have the summer to play; she was playing internationally. So she gets here, she gets thrown into the fire, and she’s been great, working hard, trying to understand what we need from her. (Versus Illinois) was the first sign of what we need from her. It’s not just the points. It’s more or less being quick to the ball, blocking the shot, grabbing the rebound, and when she does that, she adds an element to us. We’re able to play really, really big. And that was really effective for our zone, because the back line, they were 6-5, 6-4, 6-7. That’s really hard to get anything above.”
