‘Fell in love with her.’ Why new Kentucky guard Jemma Amoore was a must-add
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kenny Brooks called Jemma Amoore his favorite Amoore and praised her personality.
- Amoore joined Kentucky as a 5-foot-4 junior guard and IU–Indianapolis transfer.
- Brooks said Amoore will impact Kentucky through leadership and locker-room presence.
Kenny Brooks’ favorite Amoore may not be the one you’d expect.
A couple inches shorter, but with just as much personality, as one of — if not the — Kentucky’s biggest stars this decade, comes a new Ballarat, Victoria, Australia-born guard to Lexington.
“Well, (Jemma’s) my favorite Amoore,” Brooks said.
The head coach grinned as he said it, but Brooks wasn’t reaching for a punchline. Now in his third offseason at UK, Brooks and his coaching staff have built their 2026-27 roster with “fit” as their guiding principle. And new IU-Indianapolis transfer Jemma Amoore, Brooks said, has already checked key boxes that won’t show up in the box score.
“To know Jemma, you would know exactly what I’m talking about,” Brooks said at an offseason news conference this week. “If she was sitting right here, right now, she would speak to you (media members) for five minutes, and I promise you, you’d fall in love with her. She just adapts to anything and everything, and that was (from) the very first time I ever met her. She came over here, I fell in love with her within the first five minutes.”
Amoore, a 5-foot-4 junior guard who began her college career at Sacramento State, enters Kentucky as a confident, veteran presence in a crowded backcourt, but she stands out to Brooks as a player who can raise the floor of his program, even if her role is never high-usage.
“The decision was we wanted to fill our roster out,” Brooks said. “We wanted a little bit more experience in the backcourt. Somebody who has some leadership qualities. How much will she play? I don’t know. I don’t know, but I know she’s going to make a tremendous impact on our program. She already has made a tremendous impact in our locker room.”
Across her freshman and sophomore years, Amoore averaged 1.2 points in 6.3 minutes over the course of 48 career games. She made two starts in 27 games last season with the Jaguars.
Brooks didn’t deny that reality, instead arguing it wasn’t the most important point.
“She’s going to impact our team regardless of if she scores 1 point a game, (or) if she scores 10 points a game,” Brooks said. “Just because of her leadership qualities, because she’s a great person.”
That type of portal signing fits the way Brooks and his staff have discussed roster construction as the sport has grown more complicated.
Amoore’s presence, in Brooks’ eyes, will help Kentucky — which has leaned heavily on age and experience since Brooks and Co. arrived via Virginia Tech in 2024 — hold its shape. She can help stabilize a locker room, elevate day-to-day workouts and practices and, maybe most importantly, understand what Kentucky is trying to accomplish, and how, before the season even begins.
“She has a tremendous understanding of our program,” Brooks said. “She’s watched our program at Tech, she’s watched our program here, she understands what we do, she probably knows our plays.”
A familiar accent
The Amoore name, of course, hits Lexington with instant recognition because of her older sister Georgia Amoore, the former Virginia Tech star point guard who followed Brooks to UK in 2024. She became an icon to Big Blue Nation along the way to a No. 4 national seed in the 2025 NCAA tournament and went on to become the No. 6 overall pick in the WNBA Draft to the Washington Mystics.
Brooks made a point to separate the two, even as he admitted there are moments the familial resemblance messes with his peripheral vision.
“The one thing I will tell you, she is Jemma, she’s not Georgia,” Brooks said. “And I’ve made the mistake, and I called her Georgia, and I will not lie. There are times out of the corner of my eye, I kind of flinch. I’m like, ‘What the hell is Georgia doing here?’ They look alike, they sound alike. Her accent’s a little bit thicker than Georgia’s.”
The head coach isn’t asking his newest Wildcat to replicate what her older sister did at her collegiate peak; he’s asking her to be exactly who she is — a quick study, a tone setter and someone who can make an immediate impression.
“We have a play called ‘Spaghetti,’” Brooks said. “And I remember the very first time Georgia called it out, Georgia didn’t even know how to say spaghetti. And so I had a moment this year where I told (Jemma) the play was spaghetti, and when she called it out, I was just like, I had a tear come to my eye.”
Naturally, Brooks sent the clip to the now-Mystic, and the former Wildcat had her own reaction from afar.
“I sent the film to Georgia,” Brooks said. “And Georgia said she’s having FOMO watching the situation.”
