By LARRY VAUGHT
Sacred Heart senior ZaKiyah Johnson is a top five national recruit, a three-time Kentucky high school state champion, a multiple Kentucky Gatorade Player of the Year and gold medalist with USA Basketball.
The 6-foot shooting guard hopes to make her college choice before her senior season starts according to her father, Butch Jointer, an assistant boys coach at Woodford County High School.
Her final six schools are South Carolina, LSU, USC, Notre Dame, Louisville and Kentucky but she had offers from almost every major basketball power because of her versatile skill set.
“We have kept (recruiting) stuff pretty close to us (family). We discuss it within the family and just leave it at that,” said Jointer. “We have not really told anybody anything yet. Whenever she is ready, we will let the world now. She is tight lipped and tight knit.”
Kentucky would not have been on Johnson’s list if a coaching change had not been made. She had narrowed her college list to 12 in November and Kentucky was not on that list. New UK coach Kenny Brooks was recruiting her at Virginia Tech and while she liked him and his staff, she did not like the Virginia area.
“When he got the job at UK he called her. She sees the players that have been brought in and things like that,” Jointer said. “Kentucky is close to home and she’s been there for an unofficial visit. He brought a lot of players with him to Kentucky and is trying to rebuild the program. We’ll see how it goes but I think she really likes the coaching staff and likes the players he has brought in already.”
Brooks and other coaches would like to bring in a five-star player like Johnson. She has already scored 3,065 points, including 780 at Shelby County as a middle schooler playing on the high school team for two years, and grabbed 1,282 rebounds (399 at Shelby). She is a career 50.2 percent shooter (1,172 of 2,332) from the field and 72 percent (514 of 712) at the foul line. She’s also made 207 3’s, including 80 in both of the last two seasons.
Last season she averaged 18.9 points, 7.2 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 2.1 steals and 26.4 minutes per game while shooting 49 percent overall from the field, 37.7 percent from 3 and 72.1 percent at the foul line. She also carries a 3.34 grade-point average.
“You always need to work on something in your game,” Jointer said. “You can refine things but also work on other things where you need to get better. Me and her mom know what it takes when you get to college. You might be killing it right now in high school but college is 10 times harder with conditioning workouts, weight lifting and more. You have to be ready for it but no athlete ever really is. You just try to get them prepared the best you can.
“She is a hard worker. That’s one thing we don’t have to put in her head. Nine times out of 10 she is already doing something, working out or getting up shots. She knows this year (at Sacred Heart) will be different from the last three. She might have to do more of everything now. But she is a workaholic with a great attitude. Overall, she is just a lovely person who wants to be the best she can.”
Veteran Sacred Heart coach Donna Moir calls her an “amazing, humble, caring person” who understands she is a role model to many young girls.
“Her determination, work ethic and knowledge makes her so much fun to coach. She makes everyone around her better,” Moir said. “No one sees all the hours she spends in the gym getting better. She just wants to get better on and off the court.”
Johnson seldom shows emotion on the court but her father says family members can tell when she’s frustrated even if most others cannot.
“We know her facial expressions and body language,” Jointer said. “We can get her attention and tell her to calm down and she will give us a quick head nod that most people won’t even see. She gets frustrated just like other kids do. She has bad games but she does not let it affect everything else. She will get to the point she will just show she can do more than just score.
“When we would go to camps I always tell her if her shot is not falling, you can play defense. I have seen her lock down people on defense, including some of the best guards in the country. She can rebound. I just tell her to show everybody the other parts of her game. She is a very versatile player.”
There is not as much NIL money for female athletes as there is for male athletes but Jointer admits NIL still makes a difference.
“Every parent wants their kid to not have to worry about anything. The NIL stuff, in my opinion, makes it hard. It’s not just about playing time any more for some. It’s what can you offer me along with playing time and that can be hard for some to navigate,” he said. “I love that NIL benefits athletes in the long run but you have to stay level headed.
“We get phone calls about this is what I can do for you, so you have to have trusted people around you to think things through. There’s a lot that goes into this.”
Johnson knows Jasper Johnson, the former Woodford County star who recently committed to play basketball at Kentucky for coach Mark Pope. Jointer knew the Woodford coaches when he was still the head coach at Frankfort when Jasper Johnson was playing for Woodford.
“When he was in the ninth grade they used to tell me Jasper was the one and he blossomed into a great athlete, great person and great young man. God blessed him,” Jointer said. “If you are an athlete around Kentucky, you know everybody. They did not play on the same circuits, but they definitely know each other and we watched what Jasper was doing.”
Kentucky senior setter Emma Grome and redshirt freshman Brooke Bultema are building a solid on-court relationship as the season progresses after being high school rivals. Grome played at St. Ursula High School in Loveland, Ohio, just outside Cincinnati. Bultema played at Ursuline Academy in Cincinnati.
“Our high schools were in the same conference and we played each other for two years while she was still in high school and I was a freshman and sophomore,” said Bultema. “So we’ve known each other for a while and it has really been cool to play with her in college and actually be on the same side of the court with her.”
Bultema said the high school matches against Grome were “competitive and loud” every time.
“Cincinnati goes pretty wild for volleyball when we have big matches. But I also think that kind of high school experience really has helped us in college,” the 6-3 Bultema said.
The Grome-Bultema connection figures to only get stronger with Kentucky getting close to Southeastern Conference play.
“It gets better every day. It’s great in practice. I think just that transition on the court is getting more comfortable all the time,” Bultema said. “Emma and I have a great connection off the court, too, and I think that helps so much.”
With Big Blue Madness only about a month away, curiosity about coach Mark Pope’s team only seems to intensify and one player that might not be getting the attention he should be is Wake Forest transfer Andrew Carr.
The 6-11 Carr started every game at Wake Forest last season and was second on the team in rebounding, third in minutes played and fourth in scoring. He averaged 13.5 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 blocks per game and shot 52.6 percent from the field, including 37 percent from 3 — and he figures to get a lot more than the 97 3-point tries he had last season in Pope’s offense.
Carr has averaged 11 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.1 blocks per game in 117 career games at Delaware and Wake Forest.
Statistics guru Evan Miyakawa (EvanMiya.com) likes everything about Carr’s game and his fit into Pope’s system.
“He can shoot it from deep. He can stretch the floor playing at the 4 or the 5 but he can also rebound or block a shot. He’s super efficient inside,” Miyakawa said. “He elevates the play of others and that points to a really well rounded player for Kentucky this year.”
Carr was one of the first players Pope targeted after he got the Kentucky job because of his versatile skill set that included shooting 66 percent on over 200 attempts from 2-point range last season.
“He just makes great decisions. Bigs are usually one-decision guys but he can stack three on top of each other,” the Kentucky coach said. “He’s super mobile but also has terrific physicality.
“If you asked me if I would be comfortable putting the ball into Andrew Carr’s hands down the stretch with the game on the line, I would say I would be 100 percent comfortable with that.”
Elin Pudas Remler had a memorable debut for the Kentucky women’s golf team despite bogeying her final two holes at the Bettie Lou Evans Invitational at Champion Trace at Keene Trace Golf Club.
She finished the 54-hole tournament even par to place third in the individual standings in her first collegiate tourney and helped Kentucky take second place. She opened with a 5-over par 77 but then had a 3-under 69 and 2-under 70.
The Sweden native won the European Nations Championship in May and also reached the British Women’s Amateur Match Play Round of 32. She raised her world amateur ranking over 100 spots after signing with UK in November of 2023.
“I wasn’t very satisfied with my first round, no putts were dropping,” Pudas Remler said. “I felt like the world was against me. Then I just kept on fighting. I shot 69 and then felt like the world was basically fine. I did a lot of good things in the final round, too, before going bogey-bogey to finish was a bit of a disappointment.”
She believes her final two rounds are indicative of what she can do for Kentucky this season (the team plays in the Mason Rudolph Championship in Franklin, Tenn., this weekend).
“I feel like I did a lot of good things out there the last two rounds but my highest level is probably still a little bit higher than what I did in my first tournament,” the UK freshman said. “I am really excited about the rest of the season.”
Even though she’s from Sweden, she had several fans watching her play in the final round.
“Two of them were my coach’s parents,” Pudas Remler said. “They are so nice and sweet. I love them so much and felt honored that they wanted to follow me all those holes. I think they just started following me and saw a lot of birdies and thought it would be fun to watch.
Quote of the Week: “I ain’t lose in a regular season since I was in like youth ball — well, maybe high school? Sophomore year? But I ain’t lose in a long time. So it definitely didn’t feel good, but you win some, you lose some. I’m just not used to losing them,” Kentucky linebacker Jamon Dumas-Johnson, a Georgia transfer, on UK’s two-game losing streak.
Quote of the Week 2: “I played against girls and they would pull your hair, scratch or anything else to win. It’s a very physical and tough game, but it was also fun,” Kentucky junior guard Amelia Hassett on playing Australian rules football at age 16.
Quote of the Week 3: “I can definitely tell a difference. Fans and supporters are everywhere asking for pictures and handshakes. You definitely do not know who you will see that will know who you are,” Jasper Johnson on his life has changed since he committed to play basketball at Kentucky.