‘Glad I’m on the blue side.’ In Josie Gilvin, UK counts on ex-U of L player’s child
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Josie Gilvin joined Kentucky from WKU, set to face Louisville on Nov. 22, 2025.
- Defensive specialist with NCAA steals pedigree, projects to pressure SEC offenses.
- Offensive growth at WKU boosted shooting percentages, adds scoring depth at UK.
It is an article of faith in sports that one must “take it one game at a time.” Yet no one should blame Kentucky senior guard Josie Gilvin if she has sneaked a peak to the seventh game of her initial season in Wildcat blue.
On Nov. 22, Gilvin, the former Sacred Heart Academy standout, will travel with the No. 24 Cats to her hometown of Louisville to face the No. 20 Cardinals in the 2025-26 women’s hoops edition of our state’s galvanizing sports rivalry.
“I’m really excited. I think it’s gonna be fun,” Gilvin said Tuesday at Memorial Coliseum during a UK women’s basketball interview session. “I’ve always wanted to be part of the (UK-U of L) rivalry, because I’ve just watched it for so many years.”
Gilvin grew up in Louisville in what, in terms of sports allegiance, was a divided family. Her mother, known as Dayna McGrath in her college days, played basketball for U of L from 1991 through 1996. However, Gilvin’s father, Barry Gilvin, grew up in Lexington and is a former Henry Clay High School soccer goalie.
“My dad always kind of pushed me to be a ‘Kentucky kid,’” Gilvin said. “I’m glad I’m on the ‘blue side,’ for sure.”
The 6-foot Gilvin, the 2021 Kentucky High School Girls Basketball State Tournament MVP, will use her final season of college eligibility with the Wildcats after spending her first three college seasons playing for Western Kentucky.
Going back to her Sacred Heart days, Gilvin has been renowned for her defensive prowess and the boundless energy with which she plays.
During Sacred Heart’s run to the 2021 state championship, Gilvin recorded a state tournament-record 27 steals in the Valkyries’ four-game march. In Sacred Heart’s tense 49-47 win over Marshall County in the 2021 state finals, Gilvin blocked five shots.
Yet it was Gilvin’s offensive development in her junior season at WKU last year that turned heads.
From her sophomore to her junior seasons at Western, Gilvin raised her overall field goal percentage from 36% to 53.2%; increased her 3-point shooting percentage from 23.6% to 41.3%; and raised her scoring average from 4.8 points per game to 13.1.
Gilvin put up some mammoth scoring games as a junior, going for 31 points at Liberty, 28 against Kennesaw State and 27 vs. Abilene Christian. Even as her offensive output erupted, Gilvin’s all-around play did not fall off. She led WKU last season in rebounding (6.3 a game), steals (82 total) and blocks (25).
Now that Gilvin has “transferred up” from Conference-USA to the Southeastern Conference, the question is whether her offensive advancement will prove sustainable.
“We’ll find out,” UK coach Kenny Brooks said. “Obviously, Josie brings a lot to the table. Her tenacity on defense is what really got our attention, her experience. But, then, the fact ... she shot around 40% last year from 3, and that was something that just really, really got our attention.”
While playing on a UK team that boasts established power conference standouts in Clara Strack, Teonni Key and Tonie Morgan, Gilvin would figure to get open looks as defenses prioritize stopping others.
“I think once she really gets accustomed to doing the things that we want her to do, how we want them done, I think she’ll find herself open for a lot of opportunities,” Brooks said of Gilvin. “We’re banking on that she’s going to be able to have the same type of year, percentage wise, (that she had in 2024-25 for WKU). And if she does, it’s going to be a huge, huge plus for us, and we’re looking forward to that.”
Gilvin’s ball-hawking defense — she was 24th in NCAA Division I last season in steals for Western Kentucky with an average of 2.56 a game — is an unorthodox fit with Brooks’ defensive philosophy which emphasizes protecting the paint.
“She does a really good job of anticipating and playing defense and causing havoc all over the place,” Brooks said. “And I think that’s going to be good for us, too.”
Gilvin says the transition from competing versus the athletes in C-USA while at Western to practicing against an SEC roster at Kentucky has been a challenge.
“It’s definitely a big, big step, for sure, faster pace, just faster everything,” she said. “That adjustment was hard, I feel like, in the summer, but now it’s definitely starting to ease in a little bit better.”
Gilvin reports that her wearing Kentucky blue for her final college season has, for now, unified the previous divide between the UK and U of L factions in her immediate family.
When the Wildcats travel west across I-64 to face Louisville in the KFC Yum Center on November 22, Gilvin says that her mom Dayna, the former U of L player, plans to rock Kentucky blue.
“She’s gonna cheer for Kentucky, for sure,” Josie Gilvin said of her mother. “She actually wanted me to go here more. She really was excited for me to go here, so there is no trouble leading her to wearing blue.”
