Taking a look at Kentucky's roster as it currently stands

There are currently 10 players on Kentucky women’s basketball’s roster for next season. Of course, you’d love to have a full 15-player roster, but in this era of NIL and rev-share where money has to be divided between all the players, that may not be realistic at a school like Kentucky.

Kenny Brooks could certainly add one or two or pieces to the puzzle for next year, but for the most part, the roster for next year is finished.

Here are some notes regarding what will be Brooks’ third team in Lexington, based on how the roster currently looks as of May 1st.

Overall, this roster has the potential to be Kenny Brooks’ best yet

Kentucky will be a bit younger than it was a year ago. Maddyn Greenway, Emily McDonald and Savvy Swords will all be freshmen next year, but all should play significant minutes next year. Greenway will almost certainly be the starting point guard next year, which can be scary considering she’ll be a freshman in the SEC, but it helps that she’s one of the highest-rated recruits in program history, right?

Additionally, Kentucky returns seniors Clara Strack and Asia Boone, both of which will almost certainly be starting next year after being very big contributors this past season. Then, you have SEC transfers Diana Collins and Me’Arah O’Neal to pair up with former UConn Husky Ayanna Patterson as well. Plus Dominika Paurová, who shot 37.2% from three her freshman season at Oregon State.

Since his run to the Final Four at Virginia Tech in 2023, Brooks has had some great teams to work with. Next year’s squad will have a superstar in Strack, two other bonafide elite players in Boone and O’Neal and a lot more talent to throw into the mix there.

Not to say that next year’s team is going to a Final Four, but the potential is there. Of course, there are some imperfections regarding next year’s team, but overall, the ceiling for Kentucky in 2026-27 is very, very high.

No true backup center behind Clara Strack

Even with 6-foot-5 Elsa Vadfors on the roster last season, this was still a major problem for Kentucky, and with Vadfors leaving and no true fives coming in, this issue will still be present next year.

Last season, Kentucky was fortunate to see Strack go through all of last season healthy — at least healthy enough to play her 31.2 minutes per game. Interestingly enough, however, that number was down from her sophomore season when she played 31.7 minutes per game, despite having Clara Silva as a backup.

A lot of people wanted to see Brooks bring in a big, bruising, physical center this offseason to complement Strack for certain matchups, mainly in SEC play. That didn’t happen, unfortunately, but Kentucky can make do without a player of that archetype. That just means more will be asked out of Strack.

Fortunately for Kentucky, a good number of those really imposing bigs are no longer in the SEC, so that should help mitigate that issue as well.

Asia Boone might be the starting two/backup one again

Another thing that a lot of Kentucky fans wanted to see Brooks do this offseason was bring in a true backup point guard, and that didn’t happen either. We saw Boone fill in that rolle as the backup point guard at times last season, and she’ll most likely do that again next season. Perhaps Collins can help fill in those shoes as well.

It is a bit more of an uneasy situation at point guard next season because yes, Greenway is obviously very talented, she’s an unproven commodity as far as playing in college goes. Georgia Amoore and Tonie Morgan were more than proven before taking over as the one at Kentucky.

However, Amoore and Morgan were freshmen once too, and even outside of those two, we’ve seen freshmen be able to have success in college basketball. Aaliyah Chavez (Oklahoma), Aubrey Galvan (Vanderbilt) and Mia Pauldo (Tennessee) were very successful freshman guards in the SEC last season.

Small forward is the biggest question at the moment

Right now, the small forward position at Kentucky feels like the biggest question mark. The projected starters for next year would appear to be Greenway at the one, Boone at the two, O’Neal at the four and Strack at the five. However, it doesn’t feel like there is a clear-cut candidate to start at the three next year.

If you asked KSR to guess who would be the starting small forward next year as of right now, our guess would be 6-foot-2 forward Ayanna Patterson, but Brooks has a lot of directions he could go here.

Patterson is obviously an option at small forward, but how serious are McDonald’s and Swords’ chances at competing for that starting three spot? Could Paurová even sneak in there and start? Does Brooks roll out a smaller starting lineup and put Collins at the three, giving up some size but adding more shooting?

It’s a good problem to have to ponder those questions, to say the least, which leads us to our final point.

May we finally see some true bench depth?

This singular question has probably been the biggest criticism of Brooks since he arrived at Kentucky. As great as the first six or seven players in the rotation have been under Brooks, the rest of the bench has always been a major weakness. That’s not to say that the players at eight through 11 on the bench have to be as good as Strack, but they should at least be playable.

However, that criticism may not have much validity to it this season. As we just mentioned, there are a lot of players on next year’s roster who could bring quality minutes to the table. There is a very strong possibility that Brooks has the pieces to run a true nine-player rotation at Kentucky next season with the ninth person being more than just a breather for one of the starters.

This offseason has been a pretty successful one for Kentucky all things considered, and while next year’s roster certainly isn’t perfect, it has the makings to be a pretty darn good one.

KSR’s 2026-27 Kentucky WBB Roster Tracker

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