Kenny Brooks had a 'vanilla' gameplan for WKU, not wanting to reveal new plays before SEC play

Kentucky’s game against Western Kentucky just seemed really inconveniently-timed. It was the last game standing in the way before the real season — SEC play — was set to begin. With that in mind, Kenny Brooks wanted to keep the gameplan pretty basic.

Brooks has spent some time over the last couple of weeks implementing new sets into the offense, but he didn’t want to bring any of those out against the Lady Toppers. Instead, he’s opting to save those for SEC competition.

“We had a vanilla game plan,” Brooks explained on The Kenny Brooks Show. “We put in a couple new sets, and we didn’t run them. We pretty much played a motion style, little pick and roll — actually got the ball inside when we needed to. Defensively, we took away the three-point shot, and that was something we really focused on, because Western is one of the better three-point shooting teams in the country. They average almost nine a game, so we wanted to make sure we took away that. When you take away opportunities for other teams, you’re going to leave some out there, and what we left out there were driving lanes. So, they had some open drives to the basket. We wanted to make sure we just contested at the rim and clean it up, rebound the basketball and get out in transition. So, for the most part, we did a good job.”

Brooks felt like the team could have been a bit better — even without a huge drawn-out gameplan set in place. However, Brooks also noted that the extended break that the team had due to Christmas could have had an affect on their performance.

“We could do better, but I thought conditioning was a factor in the game. There was a couple possessions where, you know, I saw some kids who normally don’t look like they’re dragging, look like they were dragging, and that’s to be expected when you come back and play a game so soon after the break. Only two days after [the break] — if you look at the schedule, we were the only SEC team — I think maybe one other team — played two days afterwards, and everyone else is playing, you know, three days after the break.”

And speaking of SEC play, Brooks plans on bringing out those new plays now that we’re here. Installing new plays means more for the players to remember and execute, but the team has been good about being able to run plays correctly.

“I used to coach on the on the boys side, and I coach on the women’s side, and I’ve always said women are smarter,” Brooks joked. “So, you can have a really big playbook because they remember everything. We can go back to a play that I put in the first week — we haven’t used it for a while — and they’ll still remember it. So, this time of the year, you need that because with technology, there’s so much advancement with scouting, and everyone knows your plays. We ran a play against Western Kentucky, and it’s a very seldom-used [play] — we haven’t run in a while — and they knew it. They knew it coming in. So, there’s so many great coaches out there and great staffs, and they all do their homework. You always want to try to, you know, throw a little wrinkle into something here and there to give yourself an advantage. That’s something that will will bring out some some different things for the SEC play.”