Georgia Amoore and Kenny Brooks at Kentucky

Georgia Amoore is no longer on the Kentucky women's basketball roster, but she is far from gone. Despite only spending one season with the Wildcats after following coach Kenny Brooks from Virginia Tech, her impact will be felt for a long time. 

"I just got off the phone with her. Does it mean I don't have her if I still talk to her every day?" Brooks told CBS Sports, laughing as he pointed to a picture of her in his office. 

"Obviously, now she is gone, but she is not forgotten. She's left her legacy on this program and even though it was one year, she has really left her leadership qualities. I see a lot of what she would do, and now Teonni Key is doing it, or Clara Strack is doing it. And that's how you build a great program, when their leadership trickles down to the people below them and then continues for years and years."

In his first season at the helm of the program, Brooks guided the team to a 23-8 overall record and 11-5 in the SEC. That was a huge improvement from the previous season when Kentucky went 12-20 overall and 4-12 in conference play.

Clara Strack also followed Brooks from Virginia Tech, but she was not around when the Hokies made it to the Elite Eight in 2023. Amoore was the "quarterback" of that team, and she brought that leadership to Lexington. She has been back to Kentucky a couple of times and has spoken to the team in practice.

"That fact that she can come back, still be amongst her peers and they welcome her back, it just shows the impact she had in our program. She's been a very valuable asset to us," Brooks said. 

Amoore eventually wants to become a coach, but Brooks said her teams will never go against his.

"No, she is going to coach with me," he said. "And then maybe by the time she is ready to be a head coach, I'll just pass the torch. And I'll never have to go against her. See? I got it all planned out already."

With Amoore now graduated and part of the Washington Mystics, the new starting point guard for the team will be Tonie Morgan. During her junior year, the Georgia Tech transfer was a key part of the Yellow Jackets having one of the best seasons in program history.

She was the second-leading scorer of the team with 13.7 points per game while shooting almost 49% from the field. She also averaged 4.5 rebounds and a team-high 5.6 assists. Her scoring average hasn't been quite as high as Amoore, who averaged 19.6 points per game last season, but at 5-foot-9, Morgan is a few inches taller and rebounds more often.

"Tonie actually can do some things that Georgia couldn't do," Brooks said. "Tonie is bigger, probably a little stronger and can do some things in different areas that maybe Georgia couldn't do. And maybe she is working on some areas that Georgia was great at."

Although they were never teammates, they know each other from the ACC when Morgan was still with Georgia Tech and Amoore was with Virginia Tech. They had a cool encounter earlier this year when Amoore was flying to New York for the WNBA Draft and Morgan landed in Kentucky before officially committing. They ended up running into each other because their gates were B3 and B4, so they took a selfie and sent it to Brooks. 

Morgan has been following some of the same things Amoore used to do as Brooks' "quarterback," including taking the extra time to watch film with the coach before practice. She has embraced the blueprint that made the Amoore-led teams successful, while also creating her own path.

"I saw a vision, a vision (Brooks) had for me and this team. I knew that's something that I wanted to be a part of, so I knew this was the place for me," Morgan said during the SEC Media Days. 

"The vision is that he had the platform. He's done it before, which is the WNBA. That where I want to go. He treats players like pros essentially. That's what I wanted to be a part of."

Morgan has only been on his roster for a short time, but Brooks is already happy with what he is seeing from his new point guard.

"I'm watching her carry over the things we talk about and apply it in practice, and I've watched her get better and better," he said. "I've very affectionately said Georgia has really big shoes to fill, and we didn't want Tonie to fill them. We wanted Tonie to bring her own shoes. I want Tonie to be her own self, have her own personality, play to her strengths."

Morgan's first game as the Wildcats' point guard will be on Monday, Nov. 3, as Kentucky hosts Morehead State for the season opener.