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

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…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/kentucky-basketball-coach-kenny-brooks-091751831.html

Author : The Courier Journal

Publish date : 2024-10-29 09:17:00

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