Jada Walker started all 31 games last season. (Vicky Graff Photo)
What figures to be a difficult offseason for the Kentucky women’s basketball program got a little more difficult Wednesday when sophomore point guard Jada Walker announced she was entering the transfer portal.
That came a few days after freshman Kennedy Cambridge, who missed games at the end of the season for unspecified reasons, put her name into the transfer portal.
Walker was UK’s second leading scorer and started all 31 games. Walker averaged 27.6 minutes a game during her two years at UK and led the SEC in steals with 2.6 per game this season. She also averaged 12.9 points, 3.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists per game and shot 41.6 percent from the field for a team that had trouble scoring way too many games.
She had 24 points and six steals in a SEC Tournament win over Florida last week but now she’s gone.
Her social media post was gracious and thanked coach Kyra Elzy and her staff for the chance to play at Kentucky and be part of the 2022 SEC Tournament championship team — UK’s first one since 1982.
“I would also like to give a big shout out to Big Blue Nation for their love and support. I will always cherish my time as a Wildcat!” Walker posted on social media.
Kentucky was 2-14 in SEC play and finished last in the league. Thanks to two SEC tourney wins, UK finished the year 12-19 overall in Elzy’s second season as head coach.
Elzy had to bring in 10 new players this season and now is losing at least four players off this year’s team. Her only signee so far is four-star wing Jordy Griggs of Montverde (Fla.) Academy.
Junior forward Nyah Leveretter tore her ACL late in the season and likely will be out at least part of next season.
Senior Blair Green has a year of eligibility left she could use but has not announced if she will or not. Senior Emma King did announce Tuesday she would be back for another season.
Juniors Ajae Petty, Eniya Russell and Maddie Scherr along with freshmen Tionna Herron, Amiyah Jenkins, Cassidy Rowe, Zennia Thomas and Saniah Tyler are all on the UK roster. Herron did not play this season after having open heart surgery last fall.
Kentucky obviously will need depth and talent to compete in the SEC. Athletics director Mitch Barnhart has not indicated he’s even considering a coaching change, but Walker’s departure is just another sign that the UK program has a lot of problems to solve in the next few months and doesn’t look to have a lot of answers available for those problems.
3 Responses
Our basketball programs are a dumpster fire.
I repeat our basketball programs are dumpster fires.
Elzy has lost a lot of very good players in her short time as coach. Someone needs to find out what the problem is and then develop a plan to change the scenario. If they are leaving because of Elzy, she needs to take a long look in the mirror.