Diana Collins provides insurance Kentucky hasn't had yet under Kenny Brooks

Kenny Brooks has assembled two very good teams at Kentucky thus far, however both have lacked true guard depth, and Diana Collins will bring that to Kentucky after transferring in from Alabama this offseason. Last year in Tuscaloosa, the 5-foot-9 guard averaged 8.4 points per game on 39.8% shooting from three-point range.

In Brooks’ first year in Lexington, it was really just Georgia Amoore (33.6 3P%) and Dazia Lawrence (39.0 3P%) who provided the scoring punch from the backcourt. Both were pretty good shooters, but outside of those two, no guards provided much of an outside shot. Amelia Hassett did that at the small forward position for the last two years, even hitting a program single-season record 99 threes this past year, but there hasn’t been much help from the backcourt.

This past season, Tonie Morgan shot a career-high 34.3% from deep, but her volume (1.7 3PT attempts per game) was really low. You certainly couldn’t rely on her as a consistent, knockdown shooter. Thankfully, there’s Asia Boone, who hit 96 threes last year on 36.5% shooting from deep, but again, for the most part, it was really just Boone who you could count on. That’s why bringing Collins in will be such a massive help.

Of course, Boone and Collins are just two players like Amoore and Lawrence, but the difference is that more than likely, Collins will be coming off the bench unless Brooks suddenly wants to play small ball. Collins will provide a scoring and three-point-shooting punch that Kentucky hasn’t had these last two seasons, specifically from the bench.

Josie Gilvin shot 41.3% at WKU before coming to Kentucky for her senior season, but shot just 16.7% from beyond the arc as a Wildcat and didn’t really find her way into the rotation all year. It’s a similar tale with Lexi Blue, who is now at Northwestern. Kentucky does return redshirt sophomore Dominika Paurová, but she’s been sidelined with injury ever since she shot 37.2% from three as a freshman at Oregon State in 2023-24. Throwing Collins into the mix at Kentucky fixes a lot of that.

Of course, Brooks and his staff have brought in Ajša Sivka and Me’Arah O’Neal this offseason well, and both of them can shoot it well from three, but O’Neal will certainly be a forward at Kentucky, and it’s more than likely that Sivka will be too. It’s just nice to have insurance in the backcourt with Collins.

Maddyn Greenway, Savvy Swords and especially Emily McDonald are all good shooters too, but Collins has a proven track record in the SEC, while the three incoming McDonald’s All-Americans can’t quite say that yet. With Collins, we have seen that she can light it up against some of the best teams in women’s college basketball, and that should propel her far up in the rotation come November.

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