No 6-7 center? No problem. Kentucky women taller on average for 2025-26 campaign
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky women's basketball team averages taller height than last season.
- Nine of 12 scholarship players stand 6 feet or taller on 2025 roster.
- Departures under 5-foot-8 shifted team’s size to a more height-dominant lineup.
Height isn’t everything for a basketball player — but, when paired with athleticism and talent, it certainly doesn’t hurt.
Kenny Brooks and Kentucky women’s basketball have welcomed all but one of their 12 scholarship players for the 2025-26 season to campus; late-addition Elsa Vadfors, a 6-foot-5 freshman center from Sweden, is expected to arrive later this summer.
Of the 12 rostered players, just seven return from last season, as six — including game-changing starters Georgia Amoore and Dazia Lawrence — have either graduated, transferred or are no longer with the team. The team’s most significant transfer portal loss, 6-7 Clara Silva (TCU), was not only the tallest player on the roster, but also tied for the tallest player to ever suit up for the WIldcats, with Anna Cole (2009-10).
It is notable, then, that this year’s Kentucky team is, on average, taller than last year’s.
Of the six players not returning for another season with UK, four of them — 5-foot-6 Amoore, 5-8 Lawrence, 5-6 Saniah Tyler (Missouri) and 5-5 Cassidy Rowe — stood 5-8 or shorter; only Silva and seldom-used 6-1 guard Tanah Becker (George Washington) stood taller.
This season, only one-fourth of Brooks’ roster stands below 6 feet — 5-8 Liberty transfer Asia Boone, 5-9 Georgia Tech transfer Tonie Morgan and 5-10 Gabby Brooks, Kenny Brooks’ youngest who logged just 17 total minutes last year.
Of course, the Wildcats return starters Clara Strack (6-5), Teonni Key (6-4) and Amelia Hassett (6-3), plus former top-40 recruit Lexi Blue, who stands 6-2. The team will also welcome Jordan Obi (Penn) and Dominika Paurová (Oregon State), both of whom are listed at 6-1 and are expected to make their UK debuts following missing last season due to lower-leg injuries.
Add Western Kentucky transfer Josie Gilvin (6 feet) and incoming five-star freshman Kaelyn “KK” Carroll — who is listed at 6-3, but is suspected by Brooks of growing another inch — and Kentucky will appear taller than it has in recent memory.
“We’re big,” Brooks said. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a team ... it’s kind of crazy, you lose a 6-foot-7 player, but then you feel like you’re bigger for the next year. Because we’re bigger all across the board when you add two 6-foot-1 guards, another 6-foot-4 guard, essentially, and so I think that the addition of those players are going to help us tremendously, and I’m excited about what they’re going to bring to us.”
