Kenny Brooks wants his players to 'play with that emotion, that energy'

Kentucky scraped by Purdue Fort Wayne 79-67 after trailing for 28 minutes of the game. It seemed like the Cats came out a bit flat, and in fairness, part of that was because they had to play Louisville just 48 hours before, and that game went to overtime too.

Still though, Kentucky didn’t necessarily bring the fight to the Mastodons, and that can’t happen against top competition. It’s not that there’s a lack of effort, but there does seem to be a lack of enthusiasm out on the court at times.

Kenny Brooks touched on wanting to see his players play with more energy and emotion following the narrow win.

“It has to happen organically,” Brooks said regarding the team playing with energy. “You can talk about it, but you can’t do an exercise to make them better at it. You can’t have a kumbaya meeting and make them really good at it. It just has to happen. Georgia [Amoore] is a natural leader. She’s going to have to lead a little bit stronger. Cassidy [Rowe] understands what’s right and wrong. She’s going to use her voice. [Dazia Lawrence] has played a lot of basketball games, and she does it, but just doesn’t do it as consistently. Then, we have our triplets, what we call them — Amelia [Hassett], Clara [Strack] and Teonni [Key]. They have to be synchronized and talk more.”

Brooks acknowledged that his team is a quieter bunch naturally, but he wants to see them be vocal and show some of that emotion out on the court.

“They’re gaining experience, and they need to be a little bit more outside of themselves,” Brooks explained. “They can’t be reserved. They have to be able to go out there and play with that emotion, that energy that sometimes maybe they don’t have when they’re chilling at their apartment. Maybe it’s not their personality. You can have a different persona. You can be quiet at home, but you can come out here on the floor. You can have a whole different personality, and that’s what we need from them if we want to continue to be as good as we want to be.”

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