For Kentucky women’s basketball, losing transfers is not the main concern

When Kentucky Wildcats freshman center Tionna Herron announced she was transferring Wednesday, it made three players off last season’s UK team who have exited via the portal.

Since Kyra Elzy became top Cat three years ago, Kentucky has now had 10 players depart via transfer.

Ever since the Matthew Mitchell era’s “Great Player Exodus” of 2015-16, in which UK lost eight players to transfer and had five recruits decommit in a roughly one-year span, Kentucky fans have had an understandable paranoia around the topic of women’s basketball transfers.

However, players transferring out should not currently be the primary concern for those with an emotional investment in UK women’s hoops. In fact, the overall number of players Kentucky has lost to transfer since Elzy became head coach is not exceptional.

According to figures compiled from data on the Women’s Basketball Blog, the total of 10 players who have transferred out of the UK program under Elzy is tied for the fourth least in the Southeastern Conference in the past three years.

From lowest to highest, the departing-player transfer totals for SEC women’s basketball programs from 2020-21 through 2022-23 are: South Carolina 4, Tennessee 6, Texas A&M 8, Georgia 10, Kentucky 10, Missouri 10, Arkansas 11, Florida 12, Mississippi 12, Alabama 13, Auburn 15, LSU 15, Vanderbilt 15 and Mississippi State 19.

Soon-to-be SEC members Oklahoma and Texas have lost seven and 13 players, respectively, to transfer over the past three seasons. UK “peer schools” Indiana and Louisville have had, in order, 11 and 10 transfers out over the same time frame.

The talent level of players Kentucky has lost to the portal during the Elzy era is a concern. Of the eight players who played for Kentucky in its epic upset of No. 1 South Carolina in the 2022 SEC Tournament championship game, five subsequently left Lexington via transfer.

That included Dre’una Edwards (Baylor), whose 27 points included the three-pointer with four seconds left that gave the Wildcats a stunning 64-62 victory over Dawn Staley’s soon-to-be-national-champion Gamecocks.

Off last season’s UK team that finished last in the SEC regular season (12-19 overall, 2-14 SEC) but made an encouraging run to the quarterfinals of the league tourney, Kentucky has lost two-year starting guard Jada Walker (Baylor).

The 6-foot-4 Herron was the highest-ranked recruit (No. 69 in the country according to ESPN HoopGurlz) in Kentucky’s six-player 2022-23 freshman class, though she missed her freshman year after undergoing open-heart surgery. Guard Kennedy Cambridge, who logged the most minutes (273) among UK frosh in 2022-23, has also hit the exit.

Nevertheless, the primary issue that should worry UK women’s hoops enthusiasts isn’t that Kentucky has lost good players to transfer. It is that, as these words are typed, the Wildcats have not added even one player from the transfer portal for 2023-24.

In contrast, other SEC women’s hoops programs are doing mighty work in the portal this offseason.

Coming off an unexpected national championship, LSU Coach Kim Mulkey has used the transfer portal to build a LeBron-DWade-Bosh style super-team. To existing star Angel Reese, LSU has added DePaul All-America forward Aneesah Morrow and Louisville star guard Hailey Van Lith.

Tennessee has likely imported a brand-new starting backcourt in point guard Destinee Wells (Belmont) and combo guard Jewel Spear (Wake Forest).

Mississippi State has added three likely starters — forward Erynn Barnum (Arkansas), point guard Lauren Park-Lane (Seton Hall) and combo guard Darrione Rogers (DePaul).

Mississippi has acquired Florida’s leading scorer (KK Deans), North Carolina’s second-leading scorer (Kennedy Todd-Williams) and Auburn’s second-leading rebounder (Kharyssa Richardson).

Inside the commonwealth, Louisville’s Jeff Walz might have lost his best player, Van Lith, to a portal exit that blindsided Cardinals fans, but the U of L coach has responded by adding a whopping five guards (and six players overall) via transfer. Included are potential standouts in point guard Jayda Curry (California) and wing Kiki Jefferson (James Madison).

A year ago, Kentucky had some success acquiring talent via the portal. Of the four players UK landed as transfers, one of them, former Ryle High School star Maddie Scherr (Oregon), was an immediate starter last season and should be the Cats’ best player in 2023-24.

Two others, wing Eniya Russell (South Carolina) and post player Ajae Petty (LSU), will likely be starters for the Cats in the coming season. (The fourth UK incoming transfer from last year, power forward Adebola Adeyeye (Buffalo), used her final season of eligibility in 2022-23.)

This year, according to the Women’s Basketball Blog, Kentucky is one of only 13 Power Five conference programs which has not yet added a player via transfer for the 2023-24 season.

That puts UK on the wrong side of what seems an emerging reality:

In the current era, women’s college basketball teams are going to lose talent, even star-level talent, to transfer. The programs that compensate by consistently making the portal work in the opposite direction, too, are the ones best positioned to succeed.

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