‘They’re both more mobile.’ Kenny Brooks updates status of injured UK basketball transfers
Kentucky fans shouldn’t expect to see Jordan Obi or Dominika Paurová any time soon, but head coach Kenny Brooks is liking what he’s seeing from his injured guards; Brooks told media Friday afternoon that “they’re great, and they’re both more mobile now.”
Obi and Paurová, both 6-foot-1 transfer guards, each made their way to Lexington after starting their careers at Penn and Oregon State, respectively, but have not played to this point due to lower-leg injuries sustained during the offseason.
Obi, a three-year standout for the Quakers, graduated from Penn’s Annenberg School for Communication with a degree in communications. Though her freshman season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Obi still managed to become just the 25th player in program history to eclipse 1,000 career points, and still rates as the seventh fastest Quaker to do it. Through three seasons, Obi averaged 13.8 points, 7.6 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 0.9 steals and 1.0 blocks per contest, and was initially meant to provide a sharp offensive edge, and act as a strong veteran voice alongside fellow graduate guards Georgia Amoore and Dazia Lawrence.
Brooks revealed Friday that Obi, whose injury remains unspecified, has moved on to playing both one-on-one and two-on-two, and said, “I just salivate when I watch her, man, like, she’s good.”
“She’s really good,” Brooks said. “And she’s exactly what we need. She has that ‘it’ factor. She’s big, she’s strong, she can shoot the 3, her basketball IQ is really high and her movements are just, I don’t know if I’ve seen movements like that from a wing. And so she’s progressing. We’ve had to taper her down a little bit because she wants to go full bore and we have to calm her down.”
Paurová, who averaged 5.5 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 16.5 minutes per game during her freshman season with the Beavers, tore her ACL while competing for Czechia’s U20 team in a July 14 contest against Iceland in the FIBA Women’s EuroBasket. Brooks commended Paurová’s work ethic and determination to return to the court, and said she’d recently been cleared to shoot jump shots.
“Dom’s one of the hardest-working people I’ve ever seen,” Brooks said. “And she just wants to go, go, go and attack the day. And, you know, sometimes she’s overzealous and we have to pull her back a little bit, but just their mentality. I think both of them sitting and watching is painful at the moment, but I think they’re going to benefit from it later on because I think they’re seeing things with a different perspective, in a way that’s going to help them down the line.”
Brooks and the Wildcats clinched a winning record in SEC action on Thursday with their 73-65 road victory over Missouri, and set a program record for the most league wins by a head coach in their first season at Kentucky (10). Though he wishes Obi and Paurová weren’t dealing with injury, Brooks said he doesn’t know how the team could have performed better through 25 games.
“We would love to have ‘em,” Brooks said. “And if we had ‘em, you know, we can only wish and then wonder what we would be, but at the same time, I love who we are right now. And the way that they’ve really stepped up and overcame adversity. You know, where I don’t know how much better we could be than 21-4, even with them, but I’m excited about their progress. I’m excited where they are. I’m excited about their future.”
Next game
No. 7 LSU at No. 14 Kentucky
What: Senior Day
When: 4 p.m. Sunday
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Records: LSU 26-2 (11-2 SEC), Kentucky 21-4 (10-3)
Series: LSU leads 37-18
Last meeting: LSU won 77-56 on March 3, 2024, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
This story was originally published February 21, 2025 at 2:43 PM.
