Ciara Gregory says it was a 'no-brainer' to join the Kentucky WBB staff

This offseason, Kenny Brooks had to not only build a roster from scratch, but a staff as well. While multiple of his current staffers at Kentucky followed him from Virginia Tech, Brooks had to explore his options elsewhere as well. So, Brooks turned to Charlotte assistant Ciara Gregory as his final addition to round out his first coaching staff in Lexington.

Before arriving at Kentucky, Gregory spent the last five seasons at her alma mater of Charlotte. As a side note, she coached not one, but two former ‘Cats in KeKe McKinney and Kameron Roach while at Charlotte. Then, she coached current ‘Cat Dazia Lawrence there as well before they both jumped ship to Kentucky.

Gregory sat down with KSR to discuss her connection to Kenny Brooks, how Dazia Lawrence will cement her value in the backcourt, practice, the BBN and more as we head into a highly-anticipated season.

Getting to Kentucky and being recruited by Kenny Brooks at JMU

It was on May 1st when UK announced the hiring of Ciara Gregory, and since then, it has been nonstop for her. However, it has been more of a fun and exciting process rather than a strenuous one.

“This is my first transition in my coaching career, but it’s been awesome,” Gregory explained. “It has flown by. I’ve known Coach Brooks for a very long time. He recruited me at James Madison, and we became friends. He’s been a mentor for me the last couple years, and I’m really excited to join his staff and serve the staff and the players here. It’s been awesome to see. The community support here is incredible — something that I have never experienced before. I’m really happy to be here.”

As Gregory mentioned, she and Brooks first crossed paths when he was still coaching at JMU and she was a high school prospect.

“It was cool [being recruited by Kenny Brooks]. I really, really enjoyed him. He came in a little late, and I kind of knew where I wanted to go, but I really enjoyed getting to know him and the relationship we built. Then, we just stayed in touch — not so much while I was player, but toward the end of my career.”

She added, “I was like, ‘Oh, I think I may want to be a GA [graduate assistant] or get into coaching’. I reached out back to him, and then he helped me from there. We’ve always stayed in touch and we got really, really close over the years, and he’s definitely someone special to me.”

When asked what it was like getting the “Hey, we want you at Kentucky” call from Kenny Brooks, Gregory told KSR it was a “no-brainer” to come to Kentucky and that “he’s someone that I’ve always wanted to work for, so it was an easy, easy decision”.

Coaching Dazia Lawrence and how she will prove her worth at UK

While Gregory was at Charlotte, she was primarily tasked with coaching the guards, meaning she got a lot of time in working with Dazia Lawrence. Gregory noted that Lawrence is a marquee player who can really do it all.

“She’s very, very special,” Gregory said. “She can really fill it up. She’s had some big games that she scored a lot of points, but she’s not just a scorer. She does a lot of things on the court. She’s a tremendous leader. Obviously, this is her fifth year in college basketball, so she’s been doing it for a while, but you know, she has a lot to her game, and she plays on both ends of the ball, which is something that is really important at this level.”

Gregory also mentioned, “But she’s fun. She has a little bit of flash to her, but when she keeps her game really simple and efficient, she’s really, really good.”

In a backcourt with the likes of Georgia Amoore, the two returners in Cassidy Rowe and Saniah Tyler and two freshmen in Lexi Blue and Tanah Becker, there’s going to be a lot of competition for minutes. However, Gregory is confident the Lawrence is going to carve out a role for herself on this roster.

“I think she’ll compliment Georgia really well,” Gregory said. “Georgia obviously needs some help out there, and I think Dazia will be a perfect piece to the puzzle that we are trying to put together here. She’ll be able to knock down shots from all of Georgia’s beautiful assists, and she’ll be able to push the ball up to Georgia, which will be nice to see. We should be able to play really fast with the two of them and the rest of the group.”

Some of the early takeaways from practices thus far

Then, Gregory talked with KSR about how practice has been so far as well. Despite all of the different pieces and components, everything is coming together very well early on.

“[Practice] is fun,” Gregory noted. “It’s a really talented group. We have some shot-makers, and we have a great mixture of maturity and youth, which it’s nice to see our older girls lead our younger girls. We’re in the early stages of putting some things together, but it’s been really, really fun to see them start to come together as a team because everybody is coming from different places. We’re seeing them start to gel (which we’ve started to see a little bit in this last week) has been really good.”

She continued, “It’s really fun to learn all the different ways to do the same things. So, that’s been great to see. I think we’re about a month into some team practices and some individual workouts, so seeing how all the different coaches operate and how, like I said, seeing everybody kind of do the same thing in a different way is really fun to see as a coach.”

Being excited about the progression of Memorial Coliseum

To put the cherry on top, Gregory also talked with KSR about how excited she is to finally get to compete in the newly renovated “Historic” Memorial Coliseum.

“I feel like every day they’re making big improvements on the the build that they’re doing in there,” Gregory explained. “Every day we go and peek through the window and we’re like, ‘Oh, what’s new. What’s new now?’ So, it’s awesome. I mean, this community is tremendous. Just the support that they give, you know, basketball especially but all sports in general. It’s really something special and unique that not everybody gets to experience at the schools that they’re at.”

She finished with, “We’re really excited for Memorial Coliseum to open up. We can’t wait for November.”