How Kentucky’s 8 Division I women’s basketball programs are dealing with roster turnover

Following the Kentucky women’s basketball team’s victory against Lipscomb on Thursday, sophomore guards Amiya Jenkins and Saniah Tyler — who both scored 20-plus points after not playing much as freshmen — spoke positively about their team’s chemistry and how it has improved over the course of nonconference play.

“I think we have (gotten used to this season’s roster),” Tyler said. “Like we bond so well off the court, and I think that’s what makes us play so well together on the court. We know each other personally.”

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“And I think we will continue to grow together as the season continues,” Jenkins said.

Though UK hasn’t gotten out to an ideal start with a 6-7 record ahead of its final nonconference matchup against Samford on New Year’s Eve, the team was faced with plenty of offseason change.

After losing five players to graduation or the transfer portal and still missing Nyah Leveretter during her ACL rehab, Kentucky’s new normal — with a slew of new starters, a pair of freshmen in Janaé Walker and Jordy Griggs, and a gutsy point guard in Tennessee transfer Brooklynn Miles — is requiring time to adjust.

The reality is, it does take time to build a winning tradition in college basketball, and that’s made all the more difficult by the massive increase in options when it comes to assembling a roster each season. However, while significant roster turnover is far from unusual in today’s college basketball landscape, some programs are handling it better than others.

According to Raoul at wbbblog.com, more than 1,200 Division I women’s college basketball players entered the transfer portal from August 2022 through July 2023, and nearly 300 Division I programs added at least one Division I transfer. He also reported that more than 1,300 high school and junior college prospects committed/signed with a Division I program ahead of the 2023-24 season.

Some of the biggest brands in the sport have already demonstrated this season the highs and lows of attempting to find a rhythm amid impact exits and new faces. And, to be fair, some teams had less to overcome than others.

Sometimes, a freshman can be the key to a team’s success. At the time of the writing of this article, Notre Dame freshman Hannah Hidalgo (No. 5 in 2023 class) is the Fighting Irish’s star player, leading the team in points (23.8 per game), assists (6.2) and steals (6.0) in Notre Dame’s 9-1 start.

Of course, not every roster features a top-10 recruit. Some teams, like Tennessee, don’t have any freshman at all. The Lady Vols’ 2023-24 campaign has proven to be rockier than many had predicted. Though slowed by key injuries, Tennessee — which leaned into experience via key returners and sought-after transfers — were picked to finish third in the SEC by coaches in the preseason after securing a trio of immediately eligible transfers in Jewel Spear (Wake Forest), Destinee Wells (Belmont) and Avery Strickland (Pitt) and adding former five-star recruit Talaysia Cooper (South Carolina) after the transfer eligibility window closed. But without a consistent healthy core, the Lady Vols have struggled to find their footing and opened with a 6-5 record.

While there’s no perfect combination of talented faces new and old necessary to assemble a championship-level team — though No. 1 South Carolina and its blend of highly regarded freshmen and onetime transfers has not skipped a beat after graduating five 2023 WNBA draft picks — one thing’s for certain: If chemistry cannot be found, it might be a long season.

The eight Division I women’s college basketball teams in Kentucky entered this season facing varying degrees of roster turnover.

What stands out as nonconference play wraps up — with four teams holding a winning record (No. 19 Louisville, Eastern Kentucky, Murray State and Western Kentucky) and four below .500 (UK, Morehead State, Bellarmine and Northern Kentucky) — is the lack of correlation between how many players some of these teams had to replace versus how successful they’ve been.

NET rankings (as of noon Friday, Dec. 22) for the Bluegrass state’s teams were Louisville at 24th, then Murray State (121st), WKU (133rd), EKU (174th), Kentucky (178th), Morehead State (206th), NKU (297th) and Bellarmine (321st).

The Kentucky teams with the most similar rosters to last season’s, Murray State (7-2) and Bellarmine (4-7), are having quite different experiences. The Racers returned 11 players from last season’s 15-16 campaign, most notably senior forward Katelyn Young (20.1 points), one of the top players in the Missouri Valley Conference. Just two of the Racers’ seven top scorers are new to the program: junior guard Ava Learn (12.7), a transfer from Purdue, and freshman Haven Ford (8.3), the 2023 Miss Kentucky Basketball honoree.

Bellarmine returned 10 members from last year’s 9-22 team, including guard Hayley Harrison, who leads the way with 14.4 points per game in her second season with the Knights after two years at UT Martin. The team also added a pair of transfers in Hope Sivori (9.7 points) and Paetynn Gray (7.2), but it hasn’t been able to find its stride.

WKU (8-6), Morehead State (5-6) and NKU (2-8) each returned a similar number of players from last season but are still works in progress.

WKU replaced five players from last season’s roster, but none of their impact scorers with significant minutes are fresh faces to the team. However, the Hilltoppers’ leading shot-blocker at 1.6 per game is freshman forward Caitlin Staley.

Morehead State’s Veronica Charles, who transferred from Stony Brook ahead of the 2022-23 season, is leading the charge for the Eagles with 10.9 points and two steals per game. The Eagles have 10 new players this season, returning just six from last year. Three of the Eagles’ seven top scorers are new to the program this season: freshman Katie Novik (9.5) and junior college transfers Blessing King (5.7) and Matilda Soderlund (6.7).

The Norse are struggling to find a rhythm with eight newcomers, having had to replace six players from last year’s 17-14 campaign. Four of NKU’s seven top scorers are new to the program this season: freshmen center Carter McCray (12.4) and guard Noelle Hubert (5.0) and two transfers in former WKU guard Macey Blevins (11.4) and former EKU guard Kalissa Lacy (7.3).

It bears repeating that some teams — such as Louisville (11-2), which reached the Elite Eight before falling to eventual national runner-up Iowa last season — did not have as difficult a time selling its standard to recruits, though the Cardinals did only return four players from last year’s squad. And, so far, it’s really working, with six of the Cardinals’ seven top scorers — Kiki Jefferson (James Madison transfer), Sydney Taylor (UMass), Jada Curry (California), Nina Rickards (Florida) and Eylia Love (Georgia Tech) along with returnee Nyla Harris — new to the roster this year.

After the Cardinals’ defeat of rival UK on Dec. 10, Louisville head coach Jeff Walz spoke about what has helped continue the program’s standard of success despite the regular introduction of new faces in the transfer portal era — think Emily Engstler, the fourth overall pick in the 2022 WNBA draft after a strong season with Louisville following her transfer from Syracuse, or her 2022 teammate Kianna Smith, who started her college career with California prior to joining Louisville in 2020 and helped lead the Cardinals to a Final Four during her senior season — and he noted his transfers’ character and sacrifice, saying “they’re as good of people as we’ve had here throughout my 17 years.

“You look around the country, and when it comes to the success with portal kids throughout the entire time, the three or four years, we have had a ton of success,” Walz said. “And it’s, you know, we get good players, but they’re also good people. And that’s what separates it. And they’re coming in here for one thing and that’s to win. They’re all sacrificing the number of points they scored a game last year. But I know they thoroughly enjoy winning.”

This season’s second-winningest program in the state, EKU (10-3), has not made the NCAA Tournament since 2005, but it appears to have managed to break through to a new level after losing seven members of last season’s 18-14 roster, returning just four players and adding nine. Four of EKU’s top scorers are transfers in their first season with the Colonels, including second-leading scorer Ivy Turner (11.7 points), a graduate transfer from Northern Kentucky. Leading scorer Antwainette Walker transferred from Marquette ahead of the 2022-23 season and is now averaging more than 20 points per game.

Next game

Samford at Kentucky

When: 1 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 31

Where: Clive M. Beck Center at Transylvania University

TV: SEC Network+ (online only)

Radio: WLAP-AM 630

Records: Samford 7-5, Kentucky 6-7

Series: Kentucky leads 4-0

Last meeting: Kentucky won 88-54 on Dec. 13, 2020, in Lexington