Kentucky’s Eniya Russell announces transfer decision. She’s staying in the SEC.
Eniya Russell is headed to Mississippi State.
The senior guard, one of the Kentucky women’s basketball team’s best bench players this past season, announced her commitment to transfer to Mississippi State for her fifth and final season of college basketball. Russell sent out a “goodbye BBN” post on Sunday.
Mississippi State will be Russell’s third stop in the Southeastern Conference, having started her college career at South Carolina before transferring to UK ahead of the 2022-23 season. As a senior with the Wildcats, Russell averaged 10.1 points, 3.6 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 0.7 steals and 0.6 blocks over 32 contests. She made two starts.
Russell’s announcement arrives just a few hours after that of the Wildcats’ leading scorer, Ajae Petty, who announced her commitment to Ohio State, and, in doing so, was the first Wildcat in the portal to choose her landing spot. Starting point guard Brooklynn Miles and freshmen Jordy Griggs and Janaé Walker have yet to commit to another program or withdraw their names from the portal after publicly declaring for the transfer portal.
Despite the fact that seniors Nyah Leveretter and Maddie Scherr, as well as sophomore guard Amiya Jenkins, are not listed on UK’s online roster for the 2024-25 season, they have not yet made any public statements regarding their future plans.
Only sophomore guards Cassidy Rowe and Saniah Tyler remain on the Wildcats’ roster for 2024-25, seemingly opting to stay and play for new head coach Kenny Brooks’ inaugural season at the helm. Former UK signee Ramiya White out of Butler High School in Louisville announced via social media on April 5 that she would be reopening her recruitment.
As of late Monday afternoon, Brooks has pulled in three transfers — graduate All-America point guard Georgia Amoore and 6-foot-5 freshman center Clara Strack from Virginia Tech and 6-foot-4 redshirt sophomore center Teonni Key from North Carolina. UK has also received verbal commitments from former Virginia Tech signees Lexi Blue (No. 40 in espnW 100), a 6-foot-2 guard out of Lake Highland Prep; 6-foot-3 forward Amelia Hassett out of Eastern Florida State College and 6-foot-7 international prospect Clara Silva.
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