Kenny Brooks: Teonni Key — Kentucky WBB's 'emotional leader' — 'could be a special player'

Against North Carolina, Teonni Key seemed to “look a little bit out of it” in Kenny Brooks‘ eyes, and that surely seemed apparent given that she scored just seven points on five shot attempts — not her usual type of performance.

However, she got back to work and ended up putting up some good numbers against Queens. The 6-foot-4 forward had 12 points, 13 rebounds and four assists on Monday night, and while she only had one block, her length caused for clear disruption on the defensive end of the floor.

Brooks spoke to Key’s big bounce back performance following the 87-45 win over the Royals, but as he did that, he recalled the North Carolina game.

“This last game was tough,” Brooks said. “That’s going to be the norm; as we are in this new era of transfers, you’re going to have [players playing against their former teams]. I think this might have been the third or fourth time that I’ve had a player go back and play against their former team, and it has never gone well. Now, we won a couple of those games, but they have never played well. They have never played well, and they go back, and I don’t know how to handle it.”

He continued, “I didn’t know whether to pretend like it was — it’s kind of like a pitcher with a no hitter, you know, you don’t talk to him. And I was like, okay, I don’t want to talk to her to get her thinking about it because she wasn’t talking about it. But when the game started, you can see the emotion on her face. That’s where she went to school for three years. She played with those players there, and she looked like that was it.”

Following the loss, Brooks and Key met the next day to just talk things over.

“She came in Friday — I think was Friday night — and she sat in my office, and we just talked about an hour about moving forward, and the game is over with,” Brooks mentioned. “Can you do anything else about it? Let’s move forward, and maybe you have an opportunity later on.”

Then, after he called back to the North Carolina game and what transpired afterward, he connected that back to how Key performed against Queens.

“But I thought she did a good job, a much better job today, just being locked in, being focused,” Brooks explained. “She’s a catalyst of our defense. She’s our emotional leader. So, when you don’t have that focus, then you’re going to be a little bit off. I’m proud of the way she came out today, and she could be a special player. She really can. The things that she does, she stuffs the stat sheet, and we need that performance from her on a consistent basis.”

When Kentucky takes on Purdue on Saturday, Brooks and the Cats will need Key to continue to perform well if they’re going to leave Mackey Arena with a win.

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