LEXINGTON, Ky. — Ask Kenny Brooks about Savvy Swords, and the Kentucky women’s basketball coach all but beams. “Love Savvy. Love her versatility. Love everything that she brings,” Brooks said Tuesday at his team’s media day. Swords, one of three 2026 McDonald’s All-Americans on the UK roster, has earned the esteem of her new head coach with positional flexibility. “She’s played four positions ...

Savvy Swords of Team World moves the ball against McKenna Woliczko of Team USA during the first half at Moda Center on April 11, 2026, in Portland, Oregon.

Soobum Im/Getty Images North America/TNS

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Ask Kenny Brooks about Savvy Swords, and the Kentucky women’s basketball coach all but beams.

“Love Savvy. Love her versatility. Love everything that she brings,” Brooks said Tuesday at his team’s media day.

Swords, one of three 2026 McDonald’s All-Americans on the UK roster, has earned the esteem of her new head coach with positional flexibility.

“She’s played four positions for us this fall,” Brooks said. “I jokingly asked her. I said, ‘Hey, can you play the point for me?’ She said, ‘Give me till tomorrow, and I’ll learn it, and I’ll do it for you.’”

As Kentucky prepares to tip off a season of high expectations with its opener against Morehead State on Nov. 2, the 6-foot-2 Swords is one of the reasons optimism is high for the Wildcats.

A Canadian, Swords comes from a family where basketball is a shared passion.

Her father, Shawn Swords, played men’s basketball for Canada in the 2000 Olympics, went on to become a longtime Canadian men’s college hoops coach and is the new head coach of the Long Island Nets, the G League affiliate of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets.

Her mother, the former Shelley Dewar, played college basketball in Canada.

Swords’ older sister, Syla, is an All-America candidate as a junior-to-be at Michigan.

“My dad, actually he’s stayed in shape, so (the Swords sisters) would play one-on-one-on-one with him, and just kind of like a round-robin tournament, or King’s Court,” Swords said Tuesday. “We’d get to going at it, get chippy, and my mom would have to step in and be like, ‘Just leave it on the court, please. Let’s go home. We’re all friends.’”

The family competition helped develop Swords — “Savvy” is a nickname derived from her given name of Savannah — into one of the most-coveted recruits in the high school class of 2026.

In spite of her suffering a torn ACL as a junior at New York’s Long Island Lutheran High School, Swords’ recruiting finalists included South Carolina, Notre Dame, UCLA plus Michigan and Kentucky.

Savvy said Syla was understanding when informed her younger sister would not be joining her with the Wolverines.

“Anyone who knows Syla, she’s the most, like, caring, empathetic person. So when I told her, it was just a phone call,” Swords said. “It was nothing like a big deal because she just knows that I’m making the decision that’s best for me, and that’s honestly all she wanted in the end. She was sad because she wanted to play with me, obviously. But at the end of the day, she was my sister, first and put kind of that part aside, and she was really great with it.”

After landing Swords, Kentucky recruiters were not done at Long Island Lutheran. The Wildcats were eventually successful in their pursuit of LuHi guard Emily McDonald.

Swords says having a high school teammate — and fellow McDonald’s All-American — making the transition to college basketball with her has been a boon.

“Obviously, we’re really close, and college is so, like, so scary for freshmen. I feel like that’s definitely the narrative,” Swords said. “But having (McDonald) by my side, that we could just check in with each other and already have a baseline, I feel like that’s been really helpful in the transition.”

In Lexington, the two former Long Island Lutheran stars have bonded with UK’s third 2026 McDonald’s All-American, former Minnesota high school star Maddyn Greenway.

“With Maddyn, all three of us are really close,” Swords said. “We all, like, have kind of a connection.”

Over the summer, Swords prepared for her first college season by starring for Canada’s U-18 team in the Women’s AmeriCup tournament.

Swords had a double-double, 13 points and 12 rebounds plus four steals, as Canada fell to Team USA in the Gold Medal Game. For her overall play in the AmeriCup, Swords was named to The All-Star Five, the five-player all-tournament team.

“I feel like learning how to work with other high-level athletes, I feel like that obviously translates to here when we have Clara (Strack) and Ajsa (Sivka),” Swords said of the benefits of international competition.

It will be fascinating in 2026-27 to see how Brooks meshes into a cohesive whole a roster that features four veteran returnees, adds four veteran transfers and brings in an international player plus the three incoming McDonald’s All-Americans.

As the UK coach attempts to do that, the versatility of Swords should be a major edge.

“She offers so much for us,” Brooks said. “The versatility, we can play her so many different ways, and she plays them all exceptionally well. She has great size to be a big guard. She’s a little bit undersized in the post, but she’s so strong and she’s so smart. She’s going to be one that Big Blue Nation is going to fall in love with this year, but also for years to come. And I think she’s going to be a staple to our success.”

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