At most Kentucky is going to have returning players on its women’s basketball team next season after graduation and player defections off last season’s team.
However, give Kentucky coach Kyra Elzy credit for doing her best to reload the roster.
Jada Walker, Robyn Benton, Nyah Leveretter and Emma King all return off last year’s team that won the Southeastern Conference Tournament. The Cats also get Blair Green, who missed what would have been her senior season, due to a preseason injury.
Elzy signed six high school seniors: Four-star guard Kennedy Cambridge of Nashville, four-star post Tionna Herron of Texas, Miss Kentucky Basketball Amiya Jenkins of Anderson County, guard Cassidy Rowe of Shelby Valley, All-Ohio performer Zennia Thomas of Clevand and four-star guard Saniah Tyler of Missouri.
Kentucky also added Buffalo graduate Adebola Adeyeye.
But Tuesday the Cats announced the addition of two SEC transfers — Eniya Russell, who played in 23 games for the 2022 national champion South Carolina, and Ajae Petty, who was one of the top post players coming out of high school in 2020 and played 31 career games at LSU.
Both are juniors with three years of eligibility remaining.
The 6-3 Petty was a definite need because of UK’s lack of size and physical post play. She was the No. 1 rated post player in the 2020 recruiting class by Next Sports Phenom. She did play at three high schools in four years and now is playing for her second college but that’s just a trend in today’s sports world. She played in 19 games as a freshman at LSU but only 12 last year.
Elzy obviously is glad to have her on board.
“Ajae is an extremely talented interior player,” Elzy said in a UK release. “She was a player that we evaluated and recruited out of high school. Her size, athleticism and physicality are something we needed to add to the roster.”
“She has veteran experience in our league, which will allow her the opportunity to flourish in our system. I cannot wait to get her on campus this summer and get to work.”
The 6-1 Russell played in 49 games for South Carolina averaging 2.5 points and 1.1 rebounds per game. She was in 23 games last season when the Gamecocks won the national title — her best game was eight points and four rebounds against Mississippi State. She was ranked No. 43 in the 2020 recruiting class by ESPN.com and was named to the McDonald’s All-American team.
“Eniya is a player that we absolutely loved when we recruited her in high school,” Elzy said. “Eniya has great size on the perimeter, has elite athleticism and is very skilled offensively. She can score at all three levels and her ability to score out of the ball screen action will open up our offense.”
“We have obviously followed her first two years collegiately at South Carolina and think her style of play is going to fit our program perfectly. We cannot wait to see what her future holds at Kentucky.”
