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Brooks Sr. not afraid to say Keion will “have a really good jump”

Keion Brooks Jr.
Keyli Chisesi | Go Big Blue Country

When the 2020-21 Kentucky Wildcats take the floor later this year, Keion Brooks Jr. will be the only player on the roster who has experience playing at Kentucky.

Big Blue Nation has become accustomed to a mass exodus to the NBA every off-season. Still, even the turnover from the 2019-20 roster is a bit extreme for a John Calipari Kentucky team.

Tyrese Maxey, Immanuel Quickley, Nick Richards, Ashton Hagans, and EJ Montgomery are out the door to the NBA, Nate Sestina to graduation, and Johnny Juzang to transfer. That leaves Brooks as the only returning player with experience from last season, something the SEC Network had fun with when they recently posted a photoshopped image of Brooks standing alone in a room.

 

“It was kinda funny, not funny when they had him by himself, and everybody was gone,” Keion Brooks Sr. said. “That’s part of life and understanding that roles change at different times, and now it’s on him to lead.”

Calipari is tasked with replacing 92.4 percent of minutes played, 94.0 percent of points, 84.4 percent rebounding, 98.6 percent assists, and 91.5 percent of blocks from last season. Dontaie Allen is the only other scholarship player returning from the 2019-20 roster but missed the entire season due to recovering from an ACL injury suffered in high school.

Kentucky will welcome the top-ranked recruiting class in the nation, featuring Brandon Boston Jr. Terrence Clarke, Devin Askew, Isaiah Jackson, Lance Ware, and Cam’Ron Fletcher, as well as transfers Davion Mintz (Creighton), Olivier Sarr (Wake Forest), and Jacob Toppin (Rhode Island).

Kentucky will have collegiate experience with Mintz, and hopefully, Sarr if he receives a waiver to play. Still, Brooks is the only player that understands what it takes to wear Kentucky across their chest thirty-one nights from November to March.

COVID-19 will delay when the team can arrive on campus, resulting in missed summer practices and workouts that are vital to developing a team with a completely new roster. Brooks has been there and knows what he needs to be working on and where he needs to be when he returns to campus.

“I think it’s going to be huge for him,” Keion Brooks Sr. told Go Big Blue Country. “I feel bad for some of these guys. Coach and I talked about it a couple of weeks back about how important that time during the summer has been to help prepare these guys when they got to campus. I saw the big change in my son during those eight weeks. I’m hoping we can figure out something to get going. That time in the summer is huge, especially bringing in a new team.

“I think since Keion knows that part of it, he has been able to prepare himself for it here by doing some of the things they were doing. Trying to stay on track with the way they did things last summer. He understands where he needs to be when he gets to campus.”

 

Calipari is going to rely on Brooks to show the incoming freshmen and transfers the ropes when the team arrives on campus later this year, but that doesn’t mean he has to wait until then to lead. The 6-foot-7 sophomore is already taking ownership by communicating with his new teammates.

“Keion has done a good job reaching out to the young guys and giving them some pointers of things to work on while they’re off and getting in the best shape they can. That’s one of Cal’s things if you’re not in shape you’re not going to be able to play like you want to.”

While Brooks is mentoring from a distance via texting and phone calls, he’s committed to improving his skill set in hopes of becoming a more reliable player this season as he moves into a more prominent role.

“Right now he’s going five days a week. Three days out of the week, he does strength and conditioning, flexibility workouts, and he adds basketball on top of that. We train for a couple of hours.

“One of our family members has a private facility. He’s got a good facility that he can go there, get in the gym, hit the weights, and some things like that. We’re blessed because everything around here was shut down, and he would have to go to the park to shoot the ball if he needed to. We’re blessed to go to a place he goes to when he comes home. Blessings of having someone in the family that can provide that.”

Brooks’ work ethic is one of the reasons a sophomore jump could be on the horizon. Hours after a frustrating loss to Tennesse in the final game at Rupp Arena last season, Brooks was in the Joe Craft Center shooting and working on his game before class. Three days later, he closed the season on a positive note, totaling 10 points, three rebounds, and two steals in a win at Florida.

As a freshman, Brooks bought into his role as a seventh or eighth man on a team that featured four returning players, a senior graduate transfer, and a freshman that will hear his name called in the lottery portion of the NBA Draft. But Calipari has been mentality preparing Brooks for a more prominent role as a sophomore after he averaged 4.5 points and 3.2 rebounds in 15.1 minutes per game last season.

“They talk frequently. It’s not every day, but it’s close. He’s [Calipari] been in touch with him a lot and in constant contact about the future and how things are going. “Coach has prepped him for a whole year to step up and be ready to take that role. The things Cal had him doing prepared him. He anticipated Keion to have this type of role if he came back.

“Coach talked about him having to play a bigger role and having a different role on this team than he did last year. He needs Keion to do certain things this year that he didn’t do last year. Coach has been pumping that confidence into him that he’s his guy, and he wants him to be successful.”

 

After testing the waters with multiple targets in recent weeks, it appears the 2020-21 roster is complete. Evansville’s DeAndre Williams, who Kentucky targeted for a while, would’ve played minutes at Brooks’ position. Kentucky ultimately backed out of his recruitment leading up to a decision, and Williams chose Penny Hardaway and Memphis last Friday.

“When the debates come up about what he’s going to do, I think he’s going to surprise more than people think. Last year’s team was a different dynamic, you had a lot of guys that came back, and he did what he had to do for the team. He showed that he could learn how to do more than just one side of the ball. You put his defense, rebounding, and toughness, all the things that coach has pushed him to get better at, along with the offensive side of the ball, just knowing how to be around the ball knowing how to make plays, I’m expecting a really big jump for him from year one to year two.”

As for sophomore jumps, no one is claiming Brooks is going to be the next PJ Washington or Immanuel Quickley at Kentucky, those are unfair expectations. That said, a more prominent role, a better understanding of expectations, and experience of being in the program, along with his work ethic, make Brooks a candidate to have a significant leap as a sophomore.

“The first class we went down to watch was Nick [Richards], PJ [Washington], Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander], and those guys.  For him to see PJ’s progression, Nick’s progression, we know the staff is doing the right things to prepare them for the next level. It’s not like those guys lucked up into something, nothing fell out of the sky for them. It was the work they put in and the work the staff put in. They push every day to be better than they were the day before. That’s the part that was easy for me to see as a parent.

“It’s about the work to get better. Thinking of that class, we saw Quade [Green] playing in front of Shai when we were there. Now we look, and Shai is an NBA All-Star type player. It’s all about the development the coaching staff has, and they’ve done a great job. The mentality part is bigger than the physicality part of it.”

Kentucky’s new roster will feature fresh faces, but one thing remains the same, Calipari has a plethora of talent.

“Coach wants somebody to come to play that wants to be there; he wants somebody that wants to compete. That’s the reason why we went. Every day is a competition. I’ve seen the work Keion puts in and all the time. I’m not afraid to say he’s going to have a really good jump and look different than he did as a freshman.”

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