On Friday, Kenny Brooks will have been the Kentucky Wildcats women’s basketball coach for a full month. In that month, Brooks has already significantly transformed the paradigm for the UK women’s basketball program in two key ways. Since taking over as head coach of Kentucky on March 26, Brooks has entirely changed the process for roster construction.

Brooks, bolstered by his success in developing 6-foot-6 Elizabeth Kitley into an All-American at Virginia Tech, has added 6-foot-5 and 6-7 post players for next season.

Brooks is only beginning to add length to the UK roster. Kentucky has also signed forwards (6-4 and 6-3) and wings (6-2 and 6-1).

Kentucky sports director Mitch Barnhart, left, discusses Kenny Brooks during his first press conference as Kentucky women’s basketball coach last month. Brooks has already significantly shifted the paradigm for the Kentucky program since taking over at UK on March 26. Silas Walker (swalker@herald-leader.com) The ability to recruit players of such height marks a significant shift for Kentucky. The last time UK had a player 6-5 or taller on one of its rosters was in 2015-16, nine seasons ago. That athlete, 6-6 Ivana Jakubcova, was a rarely played, face-the-basket large who averaged 1.1 points and 1.1 rebounds for Kentucky that season.

It will be stunning if the UK does not receive significantly more production from: 1.) 6-5 sophomore-to-be Clara Strack, who averaged 17.5 points and 7.5 rebounds in two 2024 NCAA Tournament games for Virginia Tech while filling in for an injured Kitley; 2.) 6-7 freshman-to-be Clara Silva, a Portugal native and one of the most-coveted international prospects in the current high school recruiting class.

With such height and potential in the post, Kentucky’s first season under Brooks will look very different from the frenetic, full-court pressing style Matthew Mitchell used to make UK women’s basketball nationally relevant — three NCAA Tournament Elite Eights and five Sweet 16s from 2010 to 2016 — in the early part of the second decade of the twenty-first century. “Obviously, we will have more size. We’re going to try to surround them with shooters to keep the floor open,” Brooks stated of Kentucky’s new playing style on his inaugural radio show on the UK Sports Network on April 15. “We’ll play a little quickly, but not in the normal helter-skelter, up-and-down style.

“We’ll be very opportunistic with our tempo and transitions. We will press the ball and take advantage of any simple opportunities that arise. But when you have a low-post presence, you should wait for the bigs to come down the court.” The second key adjustment Brooks has already instituted at Kentucky is UK’s newfound ability to succeed in the overseas recruiting market. Three of the nine players on the Wildcats’ 2024-25 roster are from outside the United States.

Georgia Amoore, an All-American point player, followed Brooks to Lexington from Virginia Tech. She will become the most accomplished player to wear Kentucky blue and white since Rhyne Howard retired following the 2022 season. Amoore is made in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. She will be joined in the UK by incoming junior college transfer Amelia Hassett, a 6-3 forward from Albury, New South Wales, Australia, and Silva, a Faro, Portugal native.

It’s not like Kentucky hasn’t had good international players. Evelyn Akhator, a former UK standout and native of Lagos, Nigeria, was the third overall choice in the 2017 WNBA draft. However, the UK has always struggled to attract elite overseas prospects. The capacity to recruit globally is critical in women’s college basketball. Simply put, there aren’t enough good American players to go around, and the best home-grown prospects prefer to gravitate toward established institutions.
One method to bridge that gap is to seek out the best players from around the world. This season’s NCAA Tournament included a total of seven international players on the rosters of the teams that advanced to the final four. On his radio show, Brooks complimented Radvile Autukaite, one of the assistant coaches who joined him to Kentucky from Virginia Tech, with expanding the international recruiting market. Autukaite, who has represented Lithuania at several age levels, “does a phenomenal job internationally,” according to Brooks. “Looking at our roster, you’ll see a few international names. She’s accountable for that.”

So far, Brooks has assembled a UK roster in which 66.7% of Wildcats players are 6-foot-1 or taller, and 33.3% are from outside the United States. It took the coach one month to usher in what appears to be a new era for Kentucky women’s basketball.