After suffering a 12-20 year in the 2023-24 season, Kentucky women’s basketball revamped its entire program from the ground up.
After shooting 39% from the field as a team and losing to opponents by a margin of 10 points, the Wildcats lost nine players to the transfer portal, including leading scorer Ajae Petty, who averaged 14.2 points per game.
Despite that, Kentucky turned right around and acquired eight new faces from all positions including star Georgia Amoore, a 5-foot-6 senior point guard and near certain WNBA talent from Virginia Tech, Gabby Brooks, a 5-foot-10 sophomore guard from Virginia Tech, Teonni Key, a 6-foot-4 redshirt sophomore transfer from North Carolina, Dazia Lawrence, a 5-foot-8 redshirt junior transfer from Charlotte, Clara Strack, a 6-foot-5 freshman center from Virginia Tech, Amelia Hassett, a 6-foot-3 junior transfer from the junior college level, Jordan Obi, a 6-foot-1 senior forward from Penn, and Dominika Paurova, a 6-foot-1 freshman wing from Oregon State. Both Obi and Paurova have been ruled out with season-ending injuries.
The players aren’t the only thing new about the program, however.
Kentucky’s new head coach, Kenny Brooks, who was signed out of Virginia Tech this past offseason, has a career winning percentage of .717, tallying over 500-career wins.
His success has turned heads, allowing questions to arise on how good this new-look team really can be and, better yet, who will take the helm.
It can instantly be assumed that Amoore will be the starting point guard and the main facilitator for the team. Under Brooks last season, Amoore averaged 18.8 points per game and 6.8 assists per game and also led Virginia Tech in total minutes played.
It can also be assumed that Strack will be heavily used in the lineup, providing experience with Brooks and using her size on the defensive side of the ball.
At the other guard position, Lawrence will likely receive heavy usage. Simply put, an experienced guard who can score, rebound, play-make and make big plays on the defensive side of the ball needs to be on the court.
Hassett, another towering big on this Kentucky roster, will also likely get big minutes from Brooks, asserting herself as a double-double player on a nightly basis. She averaged 13.7 points per game to go along with 9.8 rebounds in her two years at Eastern Florida. Hassett also averaged 2.1 blocks and 1.4 steals per game.
It’s difficult to know who coach Brooks will trust to be in the starting lineup outside of Amoore, Lawrence and Hassett, but what fans can conclude is that, regardless, Kentucky will have a deep bench with experience and exciting young talent.
Saniah Tyler, one of the only returning players from last year’s roster, is someone expected to be a huge rotation piece this upcoming season. Last year, primarily as a bench player, she averaged 10.2 points, playing 26.9 minutes per game.
ESPN ranked Kentucky women’s hoops’ recruiting class 11th in the nation, featuring four-star recruit Lexi Blue, who was originally committed to Virginia Tech, international recruit Clara Silva and guard Tanah Becker, one the country’s best high school players.
All in all, this year’s team has every weapon to complete a roster that can compete with the best of the best and the expectations are high for this new-look program for the first time in years.
Kentucky women’s basketball will debut its new team the same way it always does: in the 2024 Big Blue Madness preseason event. The event is currently slated to take place on Friday, Oct. 11, inside Rupp Arena. The event is slated to begin at 7 p.m. ET.
