Kenny Brooks throws shot at Louisville, shares excitement for first Big Blue Madness: "Anything else is just imitation"

Big Blue Madness is the start of two new eras of Kentucky basketball in Lexington as Mark Pope and Kenny Brooks make their debuts inside Rupp Arena to tip off the season. Excitement is palpable on both sides, fresh starts necessary to get the men’s and women’s programs back atop the SEC standings and making postseason runs — or simply participating in postseason play at all.

Brooks, who led Virginia Tech to the 2023 NCAA Final Four and won the 2024 ACC regular season championship, didn’t leave a comfortable situation to lose. He came to Lexington to be the leader of a blue blood program with title aspirations and potential. That journey starts tonight when he participates in his first Madness.

It’s a legendary night — one of hopefully many to come with Brooks in blue and white.

“It’s kind of sneaking up on me, because every day, somebody tells me something else I have to do (laughs),” Brooks said at UK Media Day. “I’m no stranger to it. Obviously, it’s legendary and people have been very excited about it.”

It’s a night of entertainment and celebration, but Brooks will be the first to tell you he’s not here to put on a show. All he cares about is coaching basketball and winning games.

Don’t expect any crazy dances or theatrics out of him — although he may let loose just a bit when he feels the sold-out Rupp Arena at its peak.

Either way, that’s not the priority.

“I do know that I’m not riding out in a motorcycle and I’m not dropping down from the rafters. I think they hired me to be a coach. If they wanted me to be an entertainer, they got the wrong person (laughs),” he said. “I don’t know, 24,000 cheering for you? I might come out of character a little bit and do something. It’s exciting.”

His business-only approach shouldn’t and won’t take away from the importance and magnitude of the event, though. He knows it’s an important recruiting tool with an unbelievable number of eyes on his team and program on college basketball’s biggest stage.

Others couldn’t capitalize on their preseason tip-off events — he wouldn’t name names, but it’s not a well-kept secret Kentucky’s biggest in-state rival fumbled theirs like Lamar Jackson in 2016.

Brooks wants to make sure they do this the right way, selling the brand the way it deserves to be sold.

“You look across the country and we have an eye on things because we have recruits that go to other places that — like what happened last week,” he said. “I won’t say the names of places that try to emulate Big Blue Madness, but I think what we do here and the way it’s done here, it’s legendary. At Virginia Tech and James Madison, I saw Big Blue Madness and that’s the one that you felt it was the best one.

“Anything else is just imitation. I’m excited to be a part of it.”

He may not dance and sing, but he’ll certainly look the part — if his daughter, sophomore guard Gabby Brooks, has anything to say about that, at least.

“I don’t have my fit yet. That’s the one thing about having a daughter on the team,” he said. “She is going to be on me because she says she doesn’t want to have secondhand embarrassment (laughs). So whatever I walk out in, she has to approve it. It’s kind of a little bit of pressure.”