Amiya Jenkins eyeing Kentucky Miss Basketball after taking another leap

Anderson County’s Amiya “MeMe” Jenkins looked like the best player in the state of Kentucky during her team’s Sweet 16 tournament run a season ago.

A junior at the time, the 5-foot-10 versatile wing was making her case for the 2022 Kentucky Miss Basketball award before her campaign could even begin. Anderson County was ultimately knocked out in the semifinals by the eventual champions, Sacred Heart Academy, but not before Jenkins dazzled and impressed the (still-limited) Rupp Arena crowd. She was later named the 2021 MaxPreps Kentucky Player of the Year for her outstanding performances throughout the season.

Playing 28 games in 2020-21, Jenkins, who is now committed to play college basketball for the University of Kentucky and head coach Kyra Elzy, was incredible for the Lady Bearcats. She led her team in points with 17.2 per game while shooting over 54 percent from the field. Jenkins is a hard-nosed slasher with incredible defensive instincts. But what makes her all the more impressive this season — and one of the frontrunners for Kentucky Miss Basketball — is how much she’s improved in such a short amount of time.

#BBN Help us officially welcome another Kentucky girl to the fold… @Amiy_aaa. BLEED BLUE!

☑️ Explosive slasher
☑️ High motor
☑️ Disruptive defender

💙 We are blessed to have you part of the family. You are the type of competitor we want in Kentucky Blue! #CommitToIt💫 pic.twitter.com/dBoS4cuDVO

— Kyra Elzy (@UKCoachLZ) November 12, 2021

Now a senior, Jenkins has taken her game to a different level. She’s up to 19.9 points per game this season on 52.5 percent shooting to go along with 5.4 rebounds per outing. Arguably the biggest (and only) knock on her game heading into her senior season was a lack of a 3-point jumper. Jenkins shot just 23.2 percent (13-56) from distance last season. This year? That number has exploded to 49.3 percent on a shooting clip of 33-67.

It’s not just improved shooting though. Jenkins is elite when it comes to slashing and getting to the rim — and just as good at knocking down her free throws, of which she has attempted 169 this season. Her defense is right there, as well. And her playmaking? Yup, she’s gotten much better at that, too.

“I think her defense is great,” Rockcastle County High School girl’s basketball head coach, Chrysti Noble, told KSR of Jenkins. “I think she’s such a great defensive player. And she’s a playmaker too. She can get to rim, she’s a good distributor, she can rebound, but you can put her on your best player. I’m so impressed with the defense she plays.”

There are hardly any holes in her game, and the ones that are there are on the brink of being filled.

“What Amiya does that is really unique and special is she can dominate the game without scoring the basketball,” Jenkins’ head coach at Anderson County, Clay Birdwhistell, told KSR. “She can be absolutely dominant defensively. In my mind, she’s as good as anybody in the state of Kentucky defensively. And then you get to the other side of the ball and as a offensive player, she’s shooting over 50 percent from 3 for the year. That’s something she really worked on in the offseason.

“She gets to the rim at will and then she has a midrange game on top of it. Her ability to score at three levels I think is really unrivaled in Kentucky right now. Then you add in all the little things. Her ability to rebound, her ability to pass the ball, the kind of kid she is. She’s never a kid that’s searching for stats, she’s never a kid that is upset when she might not get the touches because one of her teammates is going off. Whether she gets 30 (points) or she gets 10, she’s the same kid. To me, it’s really special.”

To Birdwhistell’s point, part of earning Kentucky Miss Basketball goes beyond simply what happens on the basketball court. The player must obviously be supremely talented, but it’s what they do off the court and how they act and treat others that also play a role in the process. Jenkins has earned that stamp of approval across the state, especially from the folks out of Region 8, who elected her as their candidate.

But what makes Jenkins such a tantalizing prospect is her attitude towards the game. She’s considered a four-star recruit and top 100 player in the country, according to ESPN, for a reason. Every day, she gets better at something. At this point, she exemplifies what it means to be “positionless”.

“She’s a basketball player,” Kentucky head coach Kyra Elzy told KSR about Jenkins. “Why she fits our style, we can move her around at multiple positions. She’s a big guard, kinda what we do with our players now. She can play across the perimeter for us, if we need her to post up she can do that, she’s a big guard. Move her around defensively she can guard different players but what I love about her, she’s going to work and she wants to win.”

Jenkins still had plenty of work to do over the offseason despite reaching the semifinals of last year’s Sweet 16. Anderson County graduated three of its top five scorers from that squad heading into the 2021-22 season. That team finished with a final record of 28-3 before falling to Sacred Heart.

So what has she done this year as the team’s clear-cut leader for a second consecutive season? Just power Anderson County to a 26-4 record with another excellent shot at getting back to the Sweet 16 semifinals, and possibly winning the whole thing. The Lady Bearcats will compete in the 30th District championship on Friday with a shot at regionals on the line. But none of it would have been possible without Jenkins taking yet another leap in her development.

“She just came into this year understanding that we graduated three really nice high school basketball players that are all on college rosters right now,” Birdwhistell said. “We’ve had some kids that were going to be able to step into some of those roles but did not have the experience. And if Amiya did not put her imprint on this team, then we were going to struggle. And sometimes her imprint on this team will vary from minute to minute. There was one game that we were not rebounding like we should and I just told Amiya if you don’t get every rebound we lose. And she ends up with nine or 10 for the game.”

#💯committed…🔥🔥🏀🏀 pic.twitter.com/3hVVXjjbuV

— Meme (@Amiy_aaa) October 19, 2021

Jenkins chose to play for the home state Wildcats over the likes of Tennessee, Virginia Tech, Rutgers, Penn State, Dayton, Eastern Kentucky, and Belmont, signing her National Letter of Intent back in the fall. She’ll come to Lexington this summer where she’ll room with fellow incoming UK freshman Cassidy Rowe out of Shelby Valley, who is also considered a frontrunner for Kentucky Miss Basketball alongside Jenkins.

Similar to the personality that Kentucky fans saw when Rhyne Howard first arrived on campus, Jenkins is quiet on the surface. But in that same vein, she can break out of her shell quickly when she settles in and gets comfortable. Elzy says Jenkins is hilarious and personable once you get to know her. But beyond that, the head coach believes Jenkins personifies what it means to play basketball at Kentucky. You have to be tough, but you also have to be willing to get better every day. Jenkins possesses that mentality.

“When she was on her visit at Kentucky I asked her, what’s next for you? What do you want to do? And how can we help you?” Elzy said of Jenkins. “She’s known for a slasher and she was just like I want to get my rebounds up, I want to work on my post game, I want to work on hitting the 3 more consistently, so she definitely has tunnel vision on how she wants to improve her game.”

That tunnel vision might just lead her to the highest individual honor a Bluegrass girl can earn. No Anderson County player has ever won Kentucky Miss Basketball. Jenkins has worked her way into terrific position to be the first.