FILM ROOM: Teonni Key will bring much-needed versatility to Kentucky's offense

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Welcome to the seventh edition of KSR’s Film Room series, a weekly series where we’ll be taking a look at each player on Kentucky’s 2024-25 roster and breaking down their film. Next, we take a look at North Carolina transfer forward Teonni Key.

You can also view our other Film Room breakdowns by clicking below.

Similarly to a lot of the talent on this team, Key is one of the biggest questions that Kentucky has to answer. There are so many different pieces from various places that it can be hard to figure out what players will play what roles. However, while Key was at North Carolina, she showed enough flashes of her potential to warrant giving some serious playing time to the junior forward.

Passing out of the post

If there is anything we do know for certain about this team, it’s that it is loaded with shooters. And yes, while Key does have a consistent 15-18 footer, the bulk of her value isn’t her shooting, but getting the ball to said shooters.

Key has all of the tools and gifts to allow her to assert herself in the paint (which we’ll get to in a moment), so that causes defenses to collapse and oftentimes leave an open shooter for Key to find. Passing isn’t necessarily something that bigs traditionally do very well, but Key isn’t traditional in that sense.

She can make people pay if they take their eyes off the shooters on the perimeter.

Using footwork down low

As we just alluded to, Key’s primary and most effective way of scoring the ball comes when she’s in the post. At 6-foot-4, she may not always be the most physically imposing player in the paint, but she’s light enough on her feet to make up for that.

A lot of bigs tend to panic if the defensive pressure is right up in their grill when they get fed the ball in the post, but not Key. Instead, she just works around the defender and comes away with the bucket.

To go along with her footwork, Key also has some length to her, so she can use that to get around a defender as well. If you can reach around and lay the ball in without too much trouble, why not do it?

Being able to drive to the hoop

The last thing that makes Key so valuable to an offense is that she can play in multiple spots. She can spot up down low, she can play on the elbows and open up the pick and roll action, and she can act as a stretch four or even a stretch five in a small-ball situation.

You won’t see Key shooting from three-point range, but when she gets the ball away from the basket, she can put the ball on the floor and create a scoring opportunity from there.

Key tends to be quicker than most of the bigs she is matched up against, so that allows her to expose their inability to play true on-ball defense.