Maddie Scherr transfers to Kentucky women’s basketball from Oregon

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The Kentucky women’s basketball program will now have two Miss Kentucky Basketball award winners on its roster for the 2022-23 season.

On Friday night, Maddie Scherr announced on social media that she will be transferring to Kentucky.

Scherr, a guard who was named Miss Kentucky Basketball in 2020 out of Ryle High School in northern Kentucky, played the first two seasons of her college career at Oregon.

Her addition means that both Miss Kentucky Basketball 2020 and Miss Kentucky Basketball 2022 (guard Amiya Jenkins from Anderson County High School) are now on the UK team.

Scherr was a highly-rated recruit in the class of 2020. According to the final ESPN top-100 rankings for the 2020 class, Scherr was the nation’s No. 19-ranked recruit.

As a senior at Ryle, Scherr averaged 14.9 points and 7.3 rebounds per game as she was named a McDonald’s All-American and a Jordan Brand Classic selection, in addition to being named Miss Kentucky Basketball.

As both a junior and senior at Ryle, Scherr was named the Kentucky Gatorade State Player of the Year.

Scherr led Ryle to the school’s first state title during her junior season in 2018-2019 by averaging more than 16 points, seven rebounds, four assists and three steals per game. Scherr was the MVP of the 2019 state tournament.

As a freshman at Oregon, Scherr played in 22 of the team’s 24 games, becoming a starter toward the end of the season for all four of Oregon’s postseason games as the Ducks reached the Sweet 16. She ranked second on the team with 25 steals.

As a sophomore last season, Scherr started 28 of Oregon’s 31 games, this time coming off the bench for all three of Oregon’s postseason games.

“Something my dad always told me before I got to college is (that) college is a clean slate. Nobody cares about any of that stuff,” Scherr told the Herald-Leader in January. “Everybody wants to play and compete and (you’ve) kind of got to hit that reset button and do it all over again, really.”

Her two-year Oregon career featured per game averages of 22.2 minutes, 3.7 points, 2.6 assists and 2.9 rebounds.

In total, Scherr started 32 games and made 53 appearances for the Ducks, and shot 32.9% from the field and 32.6% from three-point range. She also totaled 71 steals during her time at Oregon.

“I think I am a natural point guard. I’ve always been this way,” Scherr said. “I like to get assists. I like to feed people the ball. I have a good IQ of seeing my players, finding people out.

“It took a lot for me to get comfortable in that,” she continued. “I think as a freshman, it was really hard. When you’re a point guard, you have the ball in your hands, you’re going to get some turnovers, so overcoming that and kind of remembering (to) still be confident and know what you can do.”

Not only will Scherr aim to bring steady guard play to the Wildcats, but she also will bring a sizable amount of social media followers.

Scherr has taken advantage of name, image and likeness opportunities as a college athlete with her significant social media following. Across three major social media platforms — Instagram, TikTok and Twitter — Scherr has more than 52,000 combined followers.

Several sponsored social media posts adorn Scherr’s social media pages as part of her NIL opportunities.

“I think it’s been a huge deal and definitely with the amount of time that we put into our sport, it’s great to have that opportunity to kind of make some money on the side,” Scherr said. “I think about how I’ve trained literally since I was in the fifth grade for this moment. And it’s like, ‘Wow, I can get paid now, too, because of this.’”

Scherr is the fourth player to join the Kentucky women’s basketball team this season via the NCAA transfer portal, following Adebola Adeyeye (Buffalo), Ajae Petty (LSU) and Eniya Russell (South Carolina).