By LARRY VAUGHT / For the Daily News

Georgia Amoore is clearly the leader of coach Kenny Brooks’ first team at Kentucky, but she also could have a big impact on future UK teams.

Maddyn Greenway, a 5-foot-8 junior point guard from Minnesota, has more than 40 scholarship offers from many of the nation’s top programs but recently cut her list to six schools — Stanford, UCLA, Duke, Iowa, Clemson and Kentucky.

She is rated as the 18th best player in the 2026 recruiting class by ESPN’s HoopGurlz. She has led Providence Academy to three consecutive Class 2A state championships and had 30 points, eight assists and seven rebounds in the title game.

Greenway averaged 34.3 points per game last season, her second straight year averaging more than 30 points per game.

Amoore is a major reason that Kentucky is on Greenway’s final list. Providence Academy coach Conner Goetz was watching Virginia Tech play during Amoore’s sophomore season and had Greenway also watch how Brooks used Amoore and how much alike Greenway and Amoore were.

“That summer we got connected with coach Brooks and coach Rad (Radvile Autukaite, UK’s recruiting coordinator),” Goetz said. “A good relationship developed. Maddyn watched Virginia Tech’s Final Four run and kept watching Georgia.

“However, Virginia Tech was not a place she really wanted to go to. Once coach Brooks got the job at Kentucky, she told me she would be kind of interested in playing in the SEC and wanted to check on Kentucky.”

Greenway has been Goetz’s starting point guard the last four years.

“She’s a special player. She was 13 years old in the seventh grade and averaged 20 points per game and now she’s at 34,” the coach said. “She plays similar to Georgia. Maddyn is a little taller, but they just play a lot alike.

“Maddyn is a big fan of Georgia and I am also a huge fan of Georgia. She is so much fun to watch play and that Australian accent just makes her even more fun. You can tell she is a great teammate.”

Goetz was not surprised that Greenway had Kentucky on her final list. He helped handle a lot of her recruiting calls until coaches were allowed to call his star player directly.

“I was pretty aware of the fit with Kentucky. It was not a surprise Kentucky was in her top six, knowing the relationship she has built with coach Brooks and his staff. Everything fits perfectly,” Goetz said.

Greenway has already scored 3,401 points and went over 1,000 points in each of the last two seasons. Last year she led the state in assists with 241 and has 758 career assists along with 767 rebounds, 490 steals and 38 blocked shots to go with her 3,401 points. She’s made 263 3-pointers — she is a career 35% shooter — and a career 77% foul shooter.

“She is a scoring point guard. She pushes our pace and tempo so much,” the coach said. “Our scoring has jumped tremendously in her career because she plays so fast. Our possessions have crept up. Because of her we take quick but efficient shots. She is always looking for the pass and that’s why she averaged almost 10 assists per game last year. Teammates shot a high percentage because she sets them up on a platter.

“Realistically, she averages close to a triple-double because she gets over eight rebounds a game and when she gets a rebound and we get out on the break, we are hard for other teams to stop.”

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Kentucky men’s basketball coach Mark Pope wants his team to shoot 3-pointers. He also wants the players to make 3-point shots but if they do not, he’s not going to panic and have any player quit taking open 3-pointers.

He learned the importance of patience with 3-point shooters from former NBA coach George Karl, a Hall of Famer who won more than 1,000 NBA games.

“One of the best basketball minds, or one of the people in basketball that I look up to and admire and learned so much from, was George Karl,” Pope said. “I got to play for coach (Karl) two different times, two different teams.

“I think, technically, he fired me twice, but coach had this incredible ability to not be a scoreboard watcher.”

Karl never hit the panic button if his team was not making shots early.

“You could go into the second media timeout and it could be 26-11, and everybody’s really fretting, but he’s like, ‘No, no, we’re fine, guys. The energy in this gym is right. We’re actually playing right. Like, everything we’re doing is right. We’re executing. We’re seeing the game. It’s just some things haven’t gone our way, but if we kind of stay on this path we’re on it’ll be good,’ ” Pope said.

The best thing about Karl is that he did not change if his team was hitting shots.

“He’d be like, ‘All right, listen, guys, we’re not right. Don’t get tricked by this scoreboard. We just made some ridiculous shots and this is not quite right,’ ” Pope recalled.

“I thought he was brilliant at not being a scoreboard watcher, but being an energy reader, and I actually think the game asks us for that. The game is asking us to, don’t be distracted.”

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Kentucky commit Jayden Clark of Northmont High School in Clayton, Ohio, missed his junior season with a torn knee ligament he suffered at a recruiting event that led to some teams backing off his recruitment.

“It was rough mentally and physically with injuries. I not only lost strength but also weight in general,” the Ohio offensive lineman said. “I tried to stay optimistic and remind myself that God had a bigger purpose and plan for me. Post-surgery I weighed 239 (pounds) and could not lift a lot (of weight). Now I am at 305 and putting up really good numbers in the weight room because of the consistent work I did.”

While other schools backed off because of his knee injury, Kentucky did not.

“I trusted God that it would be all right. Kentucky stayed with me,” Clark said. “Coach (Vince) Marrow was at the school to see me whenever possible. He’s a great guy.”

Clark considers himself an aggressive run blocker in part because of his wrestling background. He also says he has quick feet needed in pass protection.

“I like to think I am quick enough to beat my guy no matter how fast they might be and use my leverage to my advantage,” he said. “The more physical the game, the more I like it. There were some other options on the table for me, but Kentucky just always seemed like the best option.”

Clark knows UK commit Cedric Works, a four-star edge rusher who was his teammate in Ohio before he transferred to Frederick Douglass in Lexington for his senior season.

“He is an amazing athlete and also a good friend,” Clark said about the 6-5, 230-pound Works. “We went one-on-one a lot and were constantly battling. It’s good to see him have the opportunity he does and he’ll be a great teammate at Kentucky.

“He makes plays that matter at the right time. Once he gets to college, his strength will go up. He’s already a heck of an athlete.”

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The player with the biggest upside on coach Mark Pope’s basketball team likely is freshman guard Collin Chandler, a former top 30-ranked recruit who spent the previous two years on a church mission trip overseas.

“I have been recruiting him for what seems like 20 years,” Pope said. “We talk about deciders on the court, and his processing speed is incredible. He has a burst that is a little unique on our team.”

Pope likes that Chandler can get “from point A to point B in a special way” unlike any other player at UK.

“He has taken massive strides defensively,” the UK coach said. “He really has a huge upside. We are going to watch him progress and progress. I have coached kids who have taken a two-year hiatus a lot and it will be staggering how he develops the next six months as he gets his legs, timing and game back.”

Chandler said he normally goes against Jaxson Robinson, Koby Brea and Travis Perry in practice.

“That has been a big blessing for me playing against them and trying to guard them. I feel very confident guarding anybody in the country after guarding them,” he said. “You find out what you need to work on, but also things that you are good at and things that work. If something works against Lamont Butler, it will work against a lot of people in the country.”

Butler is a lockdown defender that Pope believes is one of the best perimeter defenders in the country and Chandler certainly agrees.

“It is a great challenge that any competitor wants to try to score against him. He is very physical, very fast and great at anticipating,” Chandler said. “Lamont is known to be that guy on defense — kind of like nothing to lose. Just go at him and hope it goes well and learn what you can if it does not go well.”

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Kerr Kriisa is a career 36.8% 3-point shooter who shot a career-best 42.4% at West Virginia last season, going 61-for-144 from 3-point range. The three previous years he played at Arizona in a system similar to the one Mark Pope is using at UK, one of several reasons he transferred to UK this season.

“He is an amazing player. The most notable thing is how fast he plays. He gets the ball up in transition and is yelling for the five man to take the ball out of bounds and outlet to him and he’s ready to go,” UK teammate Andrew Carr said.

“He is really, really exactly what coach Pope has said and doing it over his max ability and pushing the pace as fast as possible. Offensively the way he runs the pick and roll and manipulates the defense is really special. He adds another layer to our team and is a really important part of our team.”

Guard Lamont Butler defends Kerr often in practice. He’s seen him continue to improve almost daily.

“Kerr is a great shooter. You can’t give him no space, but the pace he plays at, that is hard to do,” Butler said. “He pushes the ball up the floor and he comes off the pick and roll and shoots. He also finds open players very well. He is a very dangerous player in so many ways.”

Kriisa also has made a believer out of ESPN analyst Jimmy Dykes.

“Kerr has some swagger and moxie about him that I think Kentucky is going to need all year. He is a clever risk taker and a player who can provide a big spark,” Dykes said.

Kerr had 12 assists in Kentucky’s win over Bucknell.

“I love him. And our guys love him. You love him as a teammate,” Pope said. “He’s just a special person. You talk about great teams that are built on a group of guys where they kind of embrace of their space on the roster and they make it bigger than you can possibly imagine. He is trying to do that. He is trying to take his space on this team and try to make it bigger.”

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Quote of the Week: “We don’t have another player, at least we haven’t to this point, that plays like him. He is the best on the team at getting to the basket. And the good thing is, he likes taking it to the basket, and he does it well,” UK Radio Network analyst Jack Givens, on guard Otega Oweh.

Quote of the Week 2: “At some point, Leanne and I are going to find some quiet moment and sit back and drink a soda sometime in the next month or two or nine months or sometime. I just look forward to that moment and we will really take it in then. It’s so deeply special to me. But right now, we’ve got work to do,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope, after his first UK win.

Quote of the Week 3: “You have not just arrived (because you are playing in the SEC). You got to put it out there every day and every practice. You have got to hold kids accountable and I don’t think these kids are. If you are, the next man up is going to give just as much effort and lay it on the line like a starter. I don’t think that is happening,” former UK all-SEC defensive back Littleton Ward, on this year’s Kentucky football team.