Saniah Tyler is back to playing a key role for UK women’s basketball. Here’s how she did it.
When the team bus for No. 11 Kentucky women’s basketball pulls up to an arena new to Kenny Brooks and his staff, he wants Saniah Tyler to be the first one off, leading the way for the program.
Because, when it comes to Southeastern Conference competition, no member of Brooks’ inaugural roster has more experience than Tyler, who is referred to lovingly as “ST.”
Now in her junior year with the Wildcats, Tyler has navigated several waves of an on-the-rise Kentucky women’s basketball program. From losing seasons to national rankings, starting lineup responsibilities, and time spent at the end of the bench to somewhere in between, Tyler’s commitment to the team has never wavered.
As a freshman out of Florissant, Missouri, who was rated a four-star prospect after a successful career at powerhouse Incarnate Word Academy, Tyler averaged just 2.8 minutes in nine games played under former head coach Kyra Elzy. The 2022-23 Wildcats finished the season 12-19 (2-14 SEC) and missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2018. Across those nine games, Tyler totaled six points, two rebounds, two steals and one turnover, but she returned for her sophomore season with something to prove.
Ahead of Tyler’s sophomore campaign, Elzy was effusive in her praise, citing Tyler’s growth and persistence to make her mark on the roster.
“I’m so proud of Saniah,” Elzy said then. “You know, she lost her confidence last year. One of the most highly recruited players coming out of high school. And then it was a big transition for her and a shock to her system — lost her confidence early, never regained it. And one of the things she and I talked about was go back to work. She’s like, ‘Coach, I don’t have any confidence.’ I was like, ‘Go back to work, get in the gym, put some shots up.’ And she did that, to her credit, and playing with so much more confidence now.”
From nine games played to playing a role in each of the 2023-24 Wildcats’ 32 contests, Tyler took a massive jump. Though the team matched its overall win total from her freshman season (12-20, 4-12 SEC), she powered through the year with an energy previously unseen. Not only was the shift in confidence clear, but it was also reflected in her statistics; last season, Tyler improved in each category, posting 10.2 points and 1.8 rebounds in 26.8 minutes per contest. She also made 12 starts, while showcasing her 3-point shot (34.5% on the season).
Though the sentiment of staying together and returning stronger was prevalent in the SEC Tournament locker room interviews following Kentucky’s disappointing, season-ending, second-round loss to Tennessee, UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart announced that Elzy would not return — and, after Brooks’ hiring at the end of the March, most of her former players declared for the transfer portal.
Only Tyler and fellow junior guard Cassidy Rowe opted to stay, a show of loyalty to the program Brooks celebrated after the team’s 65-56 victory against Alabama on Jan. 30.
“You can’t put a premium on kids who want to be here,” Brooks said. “You want kids who want to be here, and the way that they exude love for Kentucky, it helps us understand a little bit better what Kentucky is all about.”
However, once the season began, Tyler was far from the rotation yet again. After shouldering significant responsibility last year, Tyler received minutes in seven of the Wildcats’ first 11 contests, none of which were played against ranked competition, and never for more than seven minutes, save a 12-minute showing in Kentucky’s Dec. 9 rout of Queens (N.C.).
Not until the Wildcats’ final nonconference game of the year, an 88-70 win over Western Kentucky on Dec. 28, did Tyler break out. In the victory, she contributed 11 points on 4-for-5 shooting from the field in 16 minutes on the floor. Following the win, Tyler told SEC Network+ analysts Jeff Piecoro and Christi Thomas that finding her way in Brooks’ system hadn’t been easy.
“I’m not gonna lie,” she said, “the process has been hard. But I’ve been just trying to have patience, just trying to understand his system so I can fit in to the way they want me to play, so we can be a really successful team.”
Brooks shed more light into the situation in his own postgame availability, drawing a comparison between Tyler’s situation and his own college experience, during which he had to adjust to a new staff and style (the late Lefty Driesell’s) after the coach he’d committed to at James Madison was fired.
“You go into your third year and you feel like you know a lot of what’s going on,” Brooks said. “Then all of a sudden, here comes a new coach who has a totally different system, totally different style, totally different everything. And it’s taken her a little while to understand what it is that I wanted, and we had a heart-to-heart. And I told her, I said, ‘You need to do all the little things. You need to play good defense. You need to come out there and give us things we don’t have.’”
On the same aforementioned broadcast, Tyler said Brooks’ willingness to having difficult conversations has made the situation easier on her; Brooks isn’t a coach that requires a player to present her thoughts a certain way, he’s only asking for honesty in communication and hard work.
“Because I don’t have to walk on eggshells around him,” Tyler said. “He’s always open. And I appreciate that. So he knows it’s been hard, but he’s just been coaching me up, just trying to help me on the little stuff that I’m messing up on, just to make me a better player.”
Time and time again, Brooks has complimented Tyler’s dedication to the team. He acknowledged that night that, though this new hurdle has presented certain challenges for the guard, he’s never struggled with Tyler’s commitment.
“I said, ‘You just have to play hard, and you have to make me play you,’” Brooks said. “And she had an opportunity tonight, and she stepped up and she did it. I was very happy for her because she’s been nothing but receptive to what we’re doing. Even though her minutes have like plummeted from last year, she has not been a distraction. And I would like for her be a little bit more assertive, but this is a spark that we need.”
Fast-forward to SEC play, and Tyler’s presence this season is more necessary than ever before under Brooks. It’s no secret that the program — similar to Kentucky men’s basketball — has taken a hit due to injuries. Though Brooks’ Wildcats entered the 2024-25 slate knowing incoming transfer guards Jordan Obi and Dominika Paurová would be unavailable for the foreseeable future due to lower-leg injuries, a loaded SEC schedule continues to test the Wildcats in new ways.
Tyler has taken the floor in each of UK’s nine conference games — clocking double-digit minutes in each, except for in the team’s 18-point victory against Vanderbilt on Jan. 5 — and posted a season-high 23 minutes against Alabama, ahead of which Brooks and Tyler had another difficult conversation.
“We kind of got on ST the other day,” Brooks said. “And I said, you know, ‘You’re the most experienced SEC player out here. You know more than I do. You know more than Georgia (Amoore). You know more than anybody else. You’ve been through it all. So you have to become a leader, you can’t just sit here and be a follower. You need to be at the forefront. When we go to venues and we’ve never been there before, I want you to get off the bus first and show us where to go, everything that we need her to do because her experience is valuable.”
Against Alabama, during which starting forward Teonni Key struggled with foul trouble, Tyler recorded eight points, including two 3-pointers, and one rebound. She also put in a helpful defensive performance against Alabama standout guard Zaay Green.
“And that’s where ST came in,” Brooks said, “and she did a really good job. She was running around, and she was guarding Green sometimes, and it felt like Green had almost a foot on her in height. But she battled down inside, made it tough for her. And really just held it down for us until we could put Teonni back in and we could get our rotation back in order.”
The Wildcats, who lean heavily on the usual starting five of Amoore, Key, Dazia Lawrence, Amelia Hassett and Clara Strack, have found relief in leaning on reliable reserve minutes, from Tyler, to Rowe, to freshmen Clara Silva and Lexi Blue. Kentucky has nearly matched its combined win total from the past two seasons — not to mention assembled an enviable résumé as both the SEC Tournament and Selection Sunday loom.
Tyler’s production and usage might look quite different from last season, but she’s finding new ways to enter games and make an impact. To Brooks, it doesn’t matter that Tyler has never played for Kentucky during a winning season; experience is experience, and it’ll only help as Kentucky faces its final stretch of the regular season — one that includes road trips to Ole Miss (Feb. 10) and No. 2 South Carolina (March 2), and home visits from No. 4 Texas (Feb. 13), No. 6 LSU (Feb. 23) and No. 19 Tennessee (Feb. 27).
“I don’t care, you know, maybe they didn’t have as much team success as they wanted to last year,” Brooks said, “but she averaged 10 points a game in this league. ‘So you’re very valuable, and we need you.’ And I also told her, ‘This is your third year in college. It’s not like you’re a freshman, it’s your third year in college. So you need to become more of a vocal leader.’ And that’s going to help us as we navigate through the next few games.”
Next game
No. 8 Kentucky at Ole Miss
When: 7 p.m. EST Monday, Feb. 10
TV: ESPN2
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Records: Kentucky 19-2 (8-1 SEC), Ole Miss 15-7 (6-4)
Series: Ole Miss leads 28-19
Last meeting: Ole Miss won 75-45 on Feb. 29, 2024, at Rupp Arena
This story was originally published February 10, 2025 at 6:30 AM.
