FORT WORTH, TX — Kentucky’s women’s basketball‘s second season under the watchful eye of Kenny Brooks came to a close Saturday.
In 2024-25, Kentucky lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, falling at home to Kansas State. The Wildcats went one step further this season. UK, the fifth seed in Region 3, lost to top-seeded Texas, 76-54, at Dickies Arena on Saturday in the Sweet 16. Though they weren’t able to topple their SEC rival, this marked the Wildcats’ first Sweet 16 appearance in a decade. It’s only the seventh Sweet 16 showing in program history.
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Another improvement from Year 1 to 2 under Brooks: His second club finished with 25 victories, two more than his maiden campaign.
Bottom line: 2025-26 proved UK’s upward trajectory under Brooks is continuing after it had fallen to the bottom of the SEC prior to his hire.
At least relative to the preseason polls, the Wildcats’ Sweet 16 ending exceeded expectations. UK started the 2025-26 season No. 20 in the USA TODAY Sports Women’s Basketball Coaches Poll. (It was No. 24 in the preseason AP Top 25.)
At SEC Tipoff, the league’s preseason media event, the Wildcats were predicted to finish eighth in the conference standings in 2025-26. That wasn’t far off: After wrapping up the regular season with an 8-8 record against conference competition, Kentucky was in a four-way tie for sixth. Because of tiebreakers, however, UK wound up as the No. 9 seed at the SEC Tournament.
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Prior to that, there were plenty of highlights along the way, including:
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three wins over AP top-15 foes (the aforementioned victories over LSU and Oklahoma, then knocking of No. 14 Ole Miss on Feb. 15) in a single campaign for the first time since 1982-83.
Individual excellence went hand in hand with the team’s success this season.
Superstar junior center Clara Strack led the Wildcats in points, rebounds, blocks and steals per game. And she joined Tennessee legend Candace Parker as the only two SEC players to tally at least 1,000 points, 600 rebounds, 150 blocks, 125 assists and 50 steals within their first two seasons.
Elsewhere, transfer point guard Tonie Morgan had one of the best seasons in league history. After transferring into UK from Georgia Tech, all Morgan did in her lone campaign in Lexington is set the program’s single-season assists record — one year after Georgia Amoore set the standard, with 216.
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Morgan’s 286 assists in 2025-26 are the third most by an SEC player in a single season. The top two spots on the list are Texas A&M’s Curtyce Knox (304 assists in 2016-17) and LSU’s Temeka Johnson (289 in 2003-04).
Forward Amelia Hassett led the conference in 3-point field goals in 2025-26, sinking 99. That figure also established a single-season program record. Guard Asia Boone had 96 triples of her own, which also surpassed UK’s prior single-season mark of 84, set by Rhyne Howard in 2019-20.
Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: UK women’s basketball in Sweet 16 was another step under Kenny Brooks
