Kentucky basketball coach Kenny Brooks ready for new challenge after leaving home state

Posted by Admin October 29, 2024 Basketball

LEXINGTON — Scan Kenny Brooks‘ résumé, or residential history, and something is strikingly clear. Brooks, who will turn 56 in December, has never lived or worked outside Virginia. Until now. In March, Kentucky hired Brooks as its new women’s basketball coach.

What compelled Brooks to — finally — trade one commonwealth for another?

“It was probably the first school that gave me an opportunity that made sense,” Brooks told The Courier Journal earlier this month. “… People say all the time, ‘Well, you never left Virginia.’ Well, I really didn’t have an opportunity.”

He pointed out he’s the all-time winningest coach at James Madison, where he earned 337 victories in 14 seasons. And the past eight seasons at Virginia Tech, he guided the program to a 180-82 (.687) record. In the past two years, Brooks led the program to its first Final Four appearance in school history as well as its maiden ACC regular-season and tournament championships. In the 10 seasons prior to his arrival in Blacksburg, Virginia, the Hokies hadn’t made the NCAA Tournament once. And they finished above .500 only twice.

Virginia Tech appeared in the Big Dance each of Brooks’ last four seasons with the program. He never had a losing season, either.

“When I took the Virginia Tech job, that was a leap of faith because they were at the bottom of the ACC,” Brooks said. “And so I took that job and we put it up to the top and made it a really good job. We had a very successful career. So to leave there, it’s gonna have to be something that makes sense.”

UK was one such option.

“It’s a blue blood. Obviously you say ‘blue blood’ and you think about the reputation of the men’s program,” Brooks said. “But I think a lot of women’s basketball programs, they piggyback off of the men’s success, and it can help you. You look at Duke. You think of Duke basketball and automatically everybody thinks about ‘Coach K’ (former coach Mike Krzyzewski). But it’s Duke. And so now the women’s team can build something off of that. North Carolina (too). All those schools.

“So Kentucky is that same opportunity for me.”

Brooks was direct in discussing the circumstances surrounding the end of his Virginia Tech tenure and the beginning of his Kentucky journey.

No, he never visited Lexington before accepting the position. Brooks made his decision through research and prayer with his wife, Chrissy.

“All the while, my feet were in Blacksburg,” he said. “My mind was in Blacksburg and thinking about that season.”

That’s part of what made the situation so difficult.

“I was still fully invested in things that were going on at Virginia Tech,” he said. “And obviously we were dealing with injuries, and we were dealing with a lot of things. So we didn’t really have a whole lot of discussion (with UK officials). We had some discussion, but it wasn’t really in depth until the season was over with.

“And then once the season was over with, it got really hot. … But really, I had to hear why I should leave that program and what I’ve done there to come to this program that needs a lot of work.”

It didn’t hurt, Brooks acknowledged, there already was “mutual interest” between himself and Kentucky.

“With the resources that are available from the University of Kentucky, the sky can be the limit — and it can be consistent,” he said. “And that’s what I was searching for.”

As much potential as Brooks believes the program possesses, he’s quick to note he views that as the long-term objective. Of course he wants the Wildcats in the NCAA Tournament this season. But the 2024-25 campaign isn’t “NCAA or bust” in Brooks’ eyes.

“Obviously, our goals are that,” he said. “But I think we have to establish our reputation. You look at the banner they have in 2022, when they won the SEC Tournament, but they caught fire. I don’t think it was a very successful season leading up to it. And I don’t down it, because that’s a huge accomplishment. But it’s consistency.”

Without that stability, Brooks said, the Wildcats have nothing.

“We have to build consistency to where people look at Kentucky women’s basketball as, ‘Hey, that’s what the expectation is. That’s the standard,'” Brooks said, referring to NCAA berths year in and year out. “And at Virginia Tech … now that’s a standard. But it wasn’t the standard when I got there.”

Brooks likened the program-building process to another sport.

“We need to, instead of trying to hit a home run right away — I’m not saying we’re going to bunt for a single, but we’re going to maybe go for a double. We’re going to try to move around the base paths,” he said, “because, I think if you try to put too much expectations on yourself — some that may be realistic, some that may not be — you shortcut things.”

Skipping steps won’t happen on his watch.

“I want to build a program; I don’t want to build just a great team here and there,” he said. “You want to build something that’s going to be sustained over a period of time.”

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.