Report: Kentucky freshman center Clara Silva enters the transfer portal
Kentucky women’s basketball’s 6-foot-7 freshman will seek to play elsewhere next season, according to media reports Tuesday.
Clara Silva has entered the transfer portal after one season as a Wildcat, according to Talia Goodman of On3.com. Goodman also reported that Silva has a “do not contact” tag attached, which might indicate that she knows where she is going. Silva did not explicitly say she had entered the transfer portal, but did post a thank you to her Instagram on Wednesday.
The only non-starter to play in each of Kentucky’s 31 games this season, Silva averaged 4.0 points, 2.6 rebounds, 0.6 assists, 0.2 steals and 1.1 blocks in 12.5 minutes per contest.
One of three freshmen on coach Kenny Brooks’ inaugural UK roster, Silva was the first Kentucky player to enter the portal after the team’s 80-79 overtime loss to five-seed Kansas State on Sunday in the NCAA Tournament second round. Later Tuesday, junior guard Saniah Tyler announced she was also planning to transfer.
Initially committed to Brooks at Virginia Tech, Silva flipped her commitment from the Hokies to the Wildcats after his hiring at UK. Silva, who reported visits to Louisville, Maryland and Tennessee before pledging to Virginia Tech in early September 2023, was considered one of the top international prospects in the freshman class.
Hailing from Faro, Portugal, Silva has years of experience in the Portuguese National Team system, and had spent the past few years playing professionally in Málaga, Spain, with Unicaja. Coaches from both the Portuguese National Team system and Unicaja told the Herald-Leader last summer that they felt Silva needed to improve her physicality through strength and conditioning in order to compete at a high level for the Wildcats.
Silva herself told the Herald-Leader this weekend that she was proud of the work she’d done this season to improve upon her strength and physicality.
“The work has been spending more time in the weight room,” Silva said. “Getting stronger, being more confident. It’s been a learning process. It’s obviously really good because you’ll only get better if you play against really good teams.”
The freshman had several flashes of greatness during her freshman campaign, but most recently delivered 12 points on 6-for-6 shooting, plus eight rebounds and three blocks in about 30 minutes of playing time against LSU on Feb. 23, a narrow loss for Kentucky. Assistant coach Josh Petersen told the Herald-Leader after the loss that Silva’s performance had to instill a sense of confidence in the freshman.
“Your first thought is, ‘OK, you’re capable,’” Petersen said. “Now, for your own internal mentality, and for the rest of the world, like you could do this, you know? And I think there’s moments leading up to this that have been tough on her and her ability to push through the moment and kind of get to the other side. And it’s funny, because you do have a high level of competition, and then when you’re out there, there is no blowing the whistle, there is no, ‘Hey, come on. You gotta, sprint the floor, get there quicker.’ There are tons of mistakes still, by everybody, it’s a game of mistakes. But I think for her, even internally, she was probably like, ‘OK, you know what? I can do this.’ And when you’re stuck out there for 30 minutes, and there really is no other option, it’s sink or swim. And I do think, in that game, she rose the occasion.”
This story was originally published March 25, 2025 at 11:54 AM.
