She’s 6-foot-7. She plays in Portugal. What is Kentucky basketball getting in Clara Silva?

In our In the Spotlight stories, Herald-Leader journalists bring you continuing coverage of news and events important to our Central Kentucky community. Read more. Story idea? hlcityregion@herald-leader.com.

It was August 2022. Radvile Autukaite had no way of knowing she was about to strike gold for the University of Kentucky on the northern coast of Portugal.

Autukaite, hired in April as UK’s women’s basketball recruiting coordinator, was then an assistant for Kenny Brooks at Virginia Tech.

She was presented a special opportunity that summer, one that would require a masterful sales job for Brooks to approve.

Autukaite, a native of Lithuania, was invited to join the coaching staff of her country’s national team for the FIBA U16 Women’s European Championship in Matosinhos, Portugal.

Spend some time with her national team? Easy. Taking a summer away from a Hokies program quickly growing its national profile? A tough sell.

“Obviously it’s summer, he kind of needs me, right?” Autukaite said. “It’s a lot going on. I’m like, ‘You know, I just feel like it’s a good opportunity for me.’ I’m kind of doing the selfish thing at this point. But I was like, ‘It’ll be good for recruiting. I’ll go down there, we’ll be there for all the other days,’ you know, things like that. So he gives me permission to do it.”

In the opening days of the championship, Autukaite and the Lithuanian team stood awkwardly in the tunnel before their shootaround, waiting for the previous game’s teams to clear the court, and ...

“Here comes Portugal off the court and we’re going in,” Autukaite said. “’... Whoa. Who is that?’”

Clara Silva.

A rebuilt Kentucky

No school has more clearly benefited from athletes’ newfound freedom of movement in college sports, aka the transfer portal, as Kentucky.

In March, Kenny Brooks replaced Kyra Elzy as Kentucky’s women’s basketball coach. A few weeks later, Mark Pope slid into John Calipari’s 15-year seat as men’s basketball coach.

Both spent the ensuing months building rosters almost entirely from scratch via the portal.

Pope, starting from zero, recruited 12 scholarship players to Lexington. Brooks, operating with only two holdovers from the Elzy era, attracted 11 new players.

Brooks’ group of 11 included several players previously connected to UK’s new women’s coach.

All-America guard Georgia Amoore followed him from Virginia Tech, as did center Clara Strack and his daughter, guard Gabby Brooks.

Junior college forward Amelia Hassett and incoming freshman Lexi Blue flipped their Hokies commitments to Kentucky.

One major piece of the puzzle remained, and on April 14, Brooks and Autukaite secured for Kentucky potentially the most intriguing new Wildcat of all.

International intrigue

Today, Clara Silva stands 6 feet, 7 inches tall.

When she dons her No. 17 jersey for Kentucky this fall, she will become one of only two Wildcats ever to approach that height. Anna Cole, who spent one injury-plagued season at Kentucky in 2009-10 before transferring to Northwestern, was the other.

Silva just turned 18 years old. She is widely viewed as one of the world’s top international women’s basketball prospects.

Her April commitment sent a jolt through the Big Blue Nation.

But what, exactly, did Autukaite discover that August day in Portugal?

How soon will she be able to help Kentucky?

And what is her potential ceiling as a Wildcat?

‘Coach, I think I found one’

Autukaite had questions of her own after getting her first look at Silva, then barely 16 years old yet leading the Portuguese team in efficiency, points, rebounds and assists — standing, literally, head and shoulders above the rest.

“Never heard of her,” Autukaite said. “Never seen her.”

Other prospects stuck out, but Silva’s dominance throughout the tournament and her ability to perform as she did at that age was a true separator — and made the debrief with Brooks upon Autukaite’s return to America a whole lot easier.

“When I came back,” Autukaite said. “I was like, ‘Coach, I think I found one.’”

Silva, a native of Faro on the southern tip of Portugal, now has years of experience with both the Portuguese Junior National Team and Unicaja Málaga, a professional team in the South of Spain. Later this summer, she’ll touch down in Lexington for the first time in her life — and begin her next chapter as a member of Brooks’ inaugural Kentucky roster.

Silva’s commitment represented a major victory for the new Kentucky staff, a testament to a two-year process based on relationships and trust.

Though Autukaite may have been one of the first collegiate coaches to take notice of Silva, “(with) social media, it only took her to have one good game and the whole world knew about her.”

Portuguese U16 National Team head coach Mariyana Kostourkova, who coached Silva that pivotal summer, told the Herald-Leader via email that those in Lexington will love the talented center.

“She is an athlete with a great work ethic and an excellent teammate,” Kostourkova wrote.

‘The mind of a point guard’

Silva’s path to the Portuguese National Team began years prior, when she was about 12 years old.

Portugal U20 head coach Augustine Pinto, through translator (and assistant coach) Marco Rodrigues, told the Herald-Leader he first saw Silva at Festa do Basquetebol, an annual festival in Portugal’s Algarve region. Every year, teams assembled from each region’s 12 best youth players competed in a national tournament.

“It’s like a filter for the country,” Pinto explained.

Pinto only began coaching Silva directly when she joined the U18 roster in 2023, but she has impressed him over the years with her mental approach. Silva isn’t what comes to mind when you think of a traditional big, Pinto said, and her ability to affect a game isn’t limited to her skill set.

“She plays with the mind of a point guard,” Pinto said. “So she understands the game and she has a really good relationship with the passing game and understands how and when to pass. She understands the game. And besides that, she has great leadership skills. And she’s a fantastic companion, has team spirit.”

Silva’s greatest impact, Pinto said, is her defensive positioning, a byproduct of how well she understands the game. Her ability to use her hands, and her length, allows her to change shots beneath the basket and stall plays.

During the group phase at this week’s FIBA U20 Women’s Eurobasket in Klaipėda and Vilnius, Lithuania, Silva averaged 8.7 points, 5.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.7 steals and 3.0 blocks in 24.4 minutes per contest. She leads Portugal in efficiency, points, rebounds and blocks.

Pinto said he can feel “a great improvement” in Silva’s game, most noticeably in her consistency, over the past year. She’s gotten older, gained more experience — both with Portuguese Basketball and Unicaja — and made strides in terms of what’s possible.

Pinto and the Portuguese Senior National Team have even saved Silva a roster spot, which will wait for her as she continues to grow with the Wildcats. Pinto said Silva could already play at Portugal’s top level, but stressed the importance of not jumping “stages of her evolution.”

A key stage of that evolution? Silva’s physical strength.

Like many young, very tall, prospects, the 18-year-old will need to build up her physicality in order to achieve her fullest potential. And, though that note was raised by Pinto and other coaches, nobody seemed to doubt the inevitability of her physical development.

“She’s one of the greatest (international) prospects, especially European,” Pinto said. “... She will fit in quite right in (the States). Especially because she has a high IQ. She knows how to position herself and understands the game, so she understands her strengths and weaknesses. She will have a great impact in American basketball.”

The move to Málaga

Not long after gaining Pinto’s notice, Silva signed her first professional contract to play basketball in Spain at the age of 13. The Unicaja women’s team, just a few years into its existence at the time, was created in response to the storied success of the men’s team and a growing interest in the sport among Málaga youth.

Silva’s older brother Hugo, with whom she is very close, led the Unicaja women’s team to find her. A 6-8 forward, Hugo played in Unicaja’s senior program prior to moving to the United States to pursue a college career at Division II Harding University in Arkansas for a season. He has since returned to Europe to play professionaly with Sport Lisboa Benfica in Portugal.

Silva’s transition to Unicaja’s senior women’s team wasn’t seamless, her first season delayed because of COVID-19 restrictions. But, according to Juanma Rodríguez, general manager of Unicaja and former European scout for the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers, it was an easy decision to sign the young center.

“When we signed her, immediately we saw her potential,” Rodríguez said. “In terms of height, a big, big woman that could really give us a different option that we didn’t have.”

Rodríguez stressed to the Herald-Leader that Silva’s contributions didn’t just stand out against professional athletes, but against professionals who could be her mother, playing in their mid-to-late 30s.

Silva moved to Málaga with her actual mother, Sofia. Her father, Walter, would travel from Portugal every weekend to watch her games. The passion and encouragement was contagious, and Unicaja head coach Jesús Lázaro told the Herald-Leader that the Silva family is beloved by the club.

“Fourteen years (old), when I started to be her coach,” Lázaro said. “This is how our history started, you know? Fourteen years old. Right now she’s 18. Four years, magic years, for the club. For the club, for all her teammates. Because Clara is a very special person. As a player, she has a huge talent. Huge talent, huge size. She’s awesome. But as a person, she’s incredible. When you start to know her, she’s a little shy; she doesn’t like to take the attention of the people, but because of her size it’s impossible.”

He noted Silva’s deep love for the game, and celebrated the fact that she’s still learning her strengths and potential.

“This is not normal,” Lázaro said. “How smart and how she can use her skills to make you win. It’s natural for her.”

Lázaro specifically praised her touch around the rim and her shooting from 6 to 10 feet. He called the fade-away shot her best talent.

Defensively, Lázaro explained that Silva is the only player he wants to use in mismatches. One might think, because of her size, that she’d have a problem matching up against speedy guards but, in Spain, that’s not the case. There, Lázaro said, women’s basketball has less of a pull-up culture, with the style of play leaning more toward attacking the paint.

“So at the end, they try to attack her,” Lázaro said. “And she’s waiting, waiting, waiting. Boom. And she blocks everything.”

This past season with Unicaja, Silva averaged 9.1 points, 5.1 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.2 blocks in 25.4 minutes per game.

Lázaro described Silva as one player that “any coach wants to get for himself,” and said she’s not only one of the best prospects in Europe, but a top-10 player for her age in the world. He echoed Pinto’s sentiment that Silva needs to get stronger, but said her high floor gives her a leg up — saying that no active college player, freshman or senior, has more talent than Silva.

Silva’s approach to the game, Lázaro said, also sets her apart. A leader by example, Silva is driven by a genuine appreciation for what basketball can bring. She never tries to speak louder than anybody, or take the spotlight from her teammates, for whom Lázaro said she has great reverence.

Daniela Abies, a former teammate of Silva on Unicaja and a junior forward at the University of Miami, highlighted the weight of Silva’s impact.

“Clara leads through her actions,” Abies said. “She’s the type of player that can dominate the paint and the game, while slipping under the radar.”

Lázaro’s description of Silva’s dedication aligns well with compliments paid to Brooks’ greatest players — a strong work ethic and a student of the game.

“The staff, we love this kind of player,” Lázaro said. “In Spain, we don’t have the culture of women’s basketball. They don’t see basketball on the TV, they only see highlights. But Clara watches games. Watches NBA games, WNBA, college. She sees everything. When you go to the court to practice with her, all the things you try to teach her, she knows. Because she saw it before. This kind of players inside of the group, for the staff and the club, it’s incredible. Everybody wants to be with her.”

Potential in Lexington

Upon Silva’s commitment to the Wildcats, many fans began dreaming of what Silva could become for Kentucky women’s basketball.

Big Blue Nation inevitably — albeit unfairly — drew a line to Elizabeth Kitley, Brooks’ 6-foot-5 All-American at Virginia Tech who was selected 24th overall by the Las Vegas Aces in the 2024 WNBA Draft.

Autukaite said Kitley’s progression and development played a role in Silva’s signing with Brooks’ staff, but emphasized the importance of recognizing Silva’s individuality.

Did the Virginia Tech staff know Kitley was going to exhibit that level of work ethic and drive? Did the coaches expect her to become the program’s all-time leader in multiple statistical categories? Of course not.

“When you recruit,” Autukaite explained. “You don’t always see it. ... So, same thing with Clara. Can she (be that great)? Absolutely, there’s no doubt about that. … The sky’s the limit for that kid.

“How she’s playing, I believe she does have the mentality of a pro. She’s already been practicing and playing with pros in Spain this year, right, where she had that opportunity to train in that environment. You know, two practices a day and things like that. It takes a special player to do that. And if you don’t have a drive, you can’t do that. You can’t maintain that schedule.

“So I think she can, but we have to be realistic and we can’t just turn on the videotape of us playing last year when, you know, Liz scores 36 and think that like, ‘Do this.’ And that’s going to be on us to remind ourselves of that as well.”

Lázaro said he warned Silva she might need time before playing a prominent role for Kentucky to prepare her for the possibility that she’s going to have problems adjusting to the game as a freshman because it’s so different.

“When she arrives there, you will see how she listens,” Lázaro said. “How she works. Her work ethic is incredible. If you say, ‘You must come 3-4 times a day,’ she’s going to come. … She can do whatever, but we need to just wait for her physical (strength). I know these four years in Kentucky are going to be the most important years for her development. I’m very sure of her.”

Málaga Hoy sports reporter José Manuel Olías contributed to this article.