What Kentucky needs from the transfer portal and who they could go get

Now that we know that Kenny Brooks will not be heading to Virginia, it’s time that we finally take a look at the 2026-27 Kentucky women’s basketball roster and really crack down on what exactly Kentucky needs from the transfer portal.

We know that Kentucky will be bringing in three McDonald’s All-American guards in Maddyn Greenway, Emily McDonald and Savvy Swords as well as returning two-time All-SEC center Clara Strack. That’s a starting point to shape next year’s roster. Lexi Blue, Kaelyn Carroll and Elsa Vadfors have hit the transfer portal, and Asia Boone and Dominika Paurová still have decisions to make regarding if they’ll be back or not, though it would be reasonable to expect both of them to be returners.

That gives us a pretty solid idea of what this Kentucky team might need. To lay it all out, here is KSR’s updated 2026-27 Kentucky Women’s Basketball Roster Tracker, which you can also follow along with on KSBoard, where we have daily discussion concerning the latest transfer portal developments.

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There are two very clear points regarding next year’s roster based on the current outlook of things. For starters, it appears that Brooks will be working with a much more inexperienced team than he had last season. With just three total seniors on the team and two that are within the rotation, he’ll heavily be relying upon Strack and Boone, assuming she’s back, for leadership.

Additionally, Kentucky is currently a very guard-heavy team. With Vadfors and Carroll set to go elsewhere, Strack is the only big on the roster. There’s not even any forwards. Kentucky made some attempts but never did land a post player in the 2026 high school recruiting class.

When you couple the need for experience with the need for forwards, it would be very reasonable to say that Kentucky needs to look for some post players with game reps under their belt. It’s an added bonus if they have Power 4 or big-game experience as well. Some extra depth on the bench wouldn’t necessarily hurt anybody either — maybe just certain players’ pockets since funds would need to be further distributed.

With that, KSR is going to take a look at some potential transfer portal targets that Kentucky could realistically go after and get. These are not names that KSR has necessarily heard that are associated with Kentucky, at least yet — just some names that could realistically wound up being potential targets for Brooks and the staff.

Ilse de Vries (Miami OH)

Before Carroll hit the transfer portal on Friday, it seemed like she would be the seamless fit to be the Amelia Hassett replacement. Both are around the same height, both can shoot the three and for Carroll, it was really just about improving her defense in order to truly be that Hassett replacement.

Of course, assuming she doesn’t withdraw her name from the portal and return to Kentucky, we won’t ever get to see how Carroll would have flourished potentially with a year under her belt.

However, there are a number of 6-foot-3-plus players out there who can shoot it from beyond the arc, and Ilse de Vries is a great example of that kind of player.

de Vries is a 6-foot-3 transfer from Miami (OH), and she will be heading into her junior year next season. de Vries took a big step up as a sophomore from her freshman year, putting up 12.7 points, 4.9 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game while shooting 49.4% from the field and 38.6% from three-point range. She started in all 35 games the RedHawks played last season.

Against West Virginia in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, de Vries recorded 12 points, five rebounds, three assists and two steals while shooting 5-8 (2-4 3PT) from the floor. Kentucky’s coaches were actually seated for that game, scouting who they’d end up playing in the second round. That obviously ended up being West Virginia, but perhaps the Nederlander showed the staff just enough to have them explore the possibility of getting her to Kentucky.

Nunu Agara (Stanford)

With Teonni Key graduating, Kentucky is losing some tremendous size at the four. Her 6-foot-5 frame will be hard to replace — so hard that it may be more reasonable to come to the conclusion that Kentucky may just have to be a bit smaller next season. If they take that route, Stanford transfer Nunu Agara could be a piece they look at.

She’d probably even slide up to the three being just 6-foot-2, while someone like de Vries would be at the four. That may not sound so great, but Agara brings some offensive firepower that even Key may not have been able to bring, and even then, Agara has shown that she can be an elite rebounder, even if she is a bit undersized.

Agara will be a senior next season after spending her first three years of college ball out west. She had a breakout sophomore season that saw her average north of 15 points per game, but some of the other aspects of her game weren’t quite as fine-tuned as they were a year ago.

This past season, Agara averaged 15.3 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.4 assists and 1.2 steals per game. The big question mark regarding her, however, is if last season was a fluke or not in regards to her three-point shooting. After shooting 35.3% from deep her freshman year and 32.6% the next year, she shot just 18.9% from beyond the arc last year. Her volume didn’t suddenly increase either; it actually stayed the same from year two to year three (1.8 3PA per game).

Of course, she’s not exactly the player you go get for her knockdown ability, and with players like Greenway, McDonald, Boone, Paurová and even Strack around her, her three-point shooting woes could certainly be masked. If she gets an open, high-percentage look, then maybe she gets closer to that 35.3% mark next year.

Agara seems to fit the mold of a taller and possibly even more talented version of Jordan Obi, and that’s certainly something that could work well on next year’s roster.

Justice Carlton (Texas)

Now, this is probably the most significant name listed. After spending her first two seasons at Texas, Justice Carlton has entered her name into the transfer portal. If Kentucky seriously wants to take that next step to compete for conference and national championships, why not go get a championship player like Carlton?

She averaged 11 points and four rebounds in two games against Kentucky last season, shooting 10-18 (2-4 3PT) from the field combined in those two meetings. You know how the old saying goes, if you can’t beat ’em… go get ’em from the transfer portal.

Carlton had several big-time performances a year ago. Perhaps her most notable outing came against the South Carolina Gamecocks in the SEC Championship, where she tallied 15 points, four rebounds, four assists and two blocks while making six of her eight shots to lead the Longhorns to the conference crown in Greenville.

Against Michigan in the Elite Eight, Carlton had 15 points, seven rebounds and three steals while going 6-10 (1-1 3PT) against the Wolverines. It goes without saying, but Carlton is a very efficient scorer who tends to rise to the occasion in the biggest of moments.

At Texas, she averaged just 19.3 minutes per game, starting in 28 of Texas’ 38 games. At Kentucky, she would almost certainly be penciled in as a starter, probably averaging close to 35 minutes per game. With that amount of playing time, Carlton could certainly elevate herself into an All-SEC caliber player.

The women’s basketball transfer portal doesn’t close until April 20. That’s not a commitment deadline either, that’s just the last day that players can enter the transfer portal. Considering that Kentucky has some work to do in the portal, it may be a while before we know what the full roster for next year will look like.

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