StracK leads Wildcats through Buffalo

Amherst, NY- Girls basketball is enjoying a golden age in Western New York. A year ago, there were seven Buffalo-area high school graduates playing in the five power conferences in NCAA Division I. But there still has never been a local player drafted by the WNBA. (Yvette Angel played briefly in the league in 1997).

Courtesy UK Athletics

Evidently, that’s bound to change in the very near future. Last Sunday, the University at Buffalo hosted 24th-ranked Kentucky and junior center Clara Strack at Alumni Arena. After the Wildcats’ 81-47 victory, both head coaches were asked if Strack, a Hamburg High grad, had a chance to be the first WNBA draft choice from Buffalo.

They were emphatic, to say the least.

“Oh, without a doubt,” said Sharkey, the Bulls’ first-year head coach, who played for UB and coached under Felisha Legette-Jack at UB and Syracuse. “When I was at Syracuse, she played against us for Virginia Tech. Watching her grow from that year to now, I’m blown away.”

Kentucky head coach Kenny Brooks recruited Strack to Virginia Tech, then took the Wildcats head job after the 2023-24 season. Strack went with him. She knew he was a superior talent developer and had sent seven of his former players to the WNBA. Brooks also sees the “W” in her future.

“Absolutely,” Brooks said after Kentucky lifted its record to 3-0. “We’ve had WNBA people come through our building and watch her play. There’s no question, if she continues on this path. She’s a unicorn. She’s 6-foot-5. She can do so many different things. She’s the most versatile post player I’ve ever had. I think she’s the best passing post player in the country.”Brooks clearly has a high regard for his star junior, who was recently named among 50 players on the preseason watch list for the 2025-26 Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, presented each year to the best player in women’s college basketball by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.

Strack’s multiple talents were on full display on Sunday afternoon at UB, where she had a career-high 27 points along with 12 rebounds and four blocked shots in 29 minutes of action. She posted up effortlessly, made crisp passes out of the post, drilled a three-pointer, ran the floor well and was a force on defense.

It was a commanding, if at times subtle, performance, the culmination of a special home-town visit that saw Strack and her teammates stop at Hamburg High on Saturday for a rousing welcome from her friends, teachers and former teammates.

Courtesy UK Athletics

“I thought it was amazing,” Strack said after signing autographs in the gym after the game. “Everyone coming out and supporting basketball in general, no matter who they’re here for. I think it’s amazing to see the growth of  women’s basketball and the crowds you can get here.

“It’s the basketball culture around here,” she said. “There’s a lot happening. Obviously, high school is getting bigger here. So it’s really exciting.”

Sharkey, who spent five years as a player and seven as an assistant coach at UB (which made Strack an offer before her sophomore year at Hamburg), has witnessed the rise in the girls’ game in Buffalo. She pointed to Ella Corey, who traveled to MAC tourney games as a third-grader, became a star at Clarence High, walked on at UB and is now on scholarship.

“Our thing is, ‘Let’s spark the next generation of girls in sport,” Sharkey said. “We’re not only putting the ball through the hoop and making the crowd go crazy or fighting for a win, we’re also inspiring the next generation of young people that want to get involved in this game. Every single one of our players started with a dream somewhere.”

The ultimate dream, of course, is to play in the WNBA, to perform in a league enjoying a remarkable surge in talent and national interest, to showcase your skills alongside the likes of Caitlin Clark, A’ja Wilson and Angel Reese.

“That’s the goal, for sure,” Strack said. “I mean, you just got to keep playing. You don’t know what tomorrow brings. You got to keep playing, working toward that goal.”

Strack said she can see it in the eyes of the little girls who come to the games, how they look up to her and see the possibilities that exist.

“Being able to showcase her, it shows a lot of the little girls around here that they can do it as well, if they continue to work hard,” Brooks said.

Working hard is second nature to Strack, who has always liked to be pushed and never stops striving to take her game to the next level. “It’s so much fun coaching her, and she wants it,” Brooks said. “She’s a workaholic. She’s consistently asking me, can we get extra, can we get extra?“

Brooks found out quickly that Strack was able to raise her level. He planned to redshirt her in 2023-24, but she was simply too good, too determined. She played sparingly as a freshman, but when Tech’s star center went down late in the regular season, Strack became the starting center in the NCAA tourney.

Strack was ready for the challenge. She scored 17 points in Virginia Tech’s first-round NCAA win. She notched her first career double-double in a narrow second-round defeat, finishing with 18 points, 10 rebounds and two blocks in just 24 minutes. It was her final game at Virginia Tech.

Brooks jumped to Kentucky after the season and Strack soon followed. She blossomed as a sophomore, starting all 31 games and averaging 15.4 points, 9.7 rebounds and 2.4 blocks. She was all-SEC second team and defensive player of the year. Strack set a school record for blocks in a season and a game.

She’s still only 19 and continuing to get better. “She gives us a chance to be great,” Brooks said, “and it’s a lot of fun coaching her, because there’s nothing she shies away from. Regardless of what I give her — a new move or new position or putting her on different parts of the floor — she just soaks it all up, and she looks for it and that’s what makes her great.”

But the most versatile post player he’s ever had? Brooks has put those seven players in the WNBA and won 543 games as a head coach. He’s put 11 teams into the NCAA Tournament. Better than any “big” on those teams?“ They can’t do what she can do,” Brooks said. “There are post players who stay right on the block. She can be on the block, she can float around, she can step out to the three.” There’s no telling how far Strack might go. She doesn’t turn 20 until later this month. She’s the biggest monument to the meteoric rise in women’s basketball in Buffalo. She’ll have company in Lexington next year. Emily McDonald, who starred at St. Mary’s of Lancaster before transferring to Lutheran High of Long Island to continue her high school career, recently committed to Kentucky.

Madison Francis, who starred at Lancaster High, is a freshman at Mississippi State and already making her presence felt. Francis and Strack will meet in an SEC game on Jan. 18 in Starkville. Who knows? Maybe there will be more than one Buffalo gal in the WNBA a few years down the road.

“Playing in the SEC, she never backed down from anything or anybody,” Brooks said of Strack, who got a technical for throwing an elbow Sunday. “Those characteristics will help your team form an identity. She’s been everything I expected and then some, and I think she’s going to continue to grow.”

Images courtesy of UK Athletics