Rhyne Howard explains decision to stay at Kentucky amid transfer portal frenzy

As of Sunday, April 17, the women’s college basketball transfer portal has over 1,100 names of student-athletes looking for a new home ahead of the 2022-23 season. The men’s college basketball side boasts an even higher number of transfers at nearly 1,400. The immediate eligibility rule for first-time transfers that was implemented in 2021 has completely changed the way both schools and players approach the decision to explore other opportunities.

From star performers to benchwarmers, there has been a wide range of players that have decided to continue their college careers elsewhere. As we’ve seen, the University of Kentucky has not been immune to this influx of transfers, for both good and bad reasons. The women’s basketball team lost four players to the portal following the 2021-22 season. The men’s side would have hardly been able to field a complete roster in 2021-22 had they not brought in several impact transfers.

In the case of Rhyne Howard, Kentucky’s first-ever No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft, she theoretically could have played her senior season somewhere that wasn’t in Lexington. She had spent the first three years of her career at UK but saw a dramatic coaching change right before her junior season. But instead of letting her eyes and mind wander, Howard elected to finish what she started — it was the only choice, really.

“I just don’t like to quit or give up, especially with what we had established as a program, as players,” Howard said on the Winsidr WNBA Show earlier this week about potentially transferring from Kentucky. “So I felt like it would have been kind of tough to just throw that away and throw all that hard work away that me and my teammates had all put into the program. I’m a competitor and I don’t like to quit on anything so I had to stay there and finish the process.”

The decision to finish the process ultimately paid off with the program’s first SEC Tournament championship in 40 years. Howard finished her career at Kentucky covering the record books with her name: over a dozen All-American teams, a handful of Player of the Year awards, and over 2,000 points as a Wildcat. All of her hard work culminated in her achieving her dream of making it to the WNBA.

If you have 20 minutes, I would suggest listening to the entire episode of the Winsidr WNBA Show, where Howard talks about her recruiting process coming to Kentucky, winning the 2022 SEC Tournament, her early years growing up playing basketball, and much, much more. She even said that she didn’t realize she was the No. 1 pick overall pick in the draft until Commissioner Cathy Engelbert called her name. Now that is nerve-racking.