Now’s the time to buy stock in Kentucky women's basketball

Ever since Matthew Mitchell stepped down from coaching back in 2020, Kentucky women’s basketball hasn’t been the same.

Kentucky went just 61-60 in four seasons under Kyra Elzy, thus resulting in her firing earlier this month. Outside of a surprise run to winning the 2022 SEC Tournament, UK women’s basketball program has been mediocre at best as of late. It also doesn’t help that times haven’t been great in Lexington overall here recently. To say the least, Mark Stoops and John Calipari have a lot of questions to answer coming off of disappointing — by their own standards — seasons.

So, as the football and men’s basketball programs continue to figure things out, there’s no better time to hop on the Kentucky women’s basketball bandwagon than right now.

Brooks’ resume that ultimately got him to Kentucky

On Tuesday, it was announced that Virginia Tech’s Kenny Brooks would be the ninth head coach in Kentucky WBB history. Brooks has a remarkable resume dating back to his days at James Madison which began in 2003. The Virginian tallied a 337-121 (.736) record at JMU, taking the program to the NCAA Tournament five times.

At Virginia Tech, Brooks put up a 180-82 (.687) record in eight seasons. While the ACC ate Brooks and the Hokies up in his first few seasons there, he would end up righting the ship, making Virginia Tech a power school in the ACC. Just last season (2022-23), the Hokies went 31-5 (14-4 ACC), making it all the way to the Final Four. There, they’d fall to LSU 79-72. The Tigers would go on to win the National Championship.

On top of that, Brooks is an elite recruiter. His biggest landing was Elizabeth Kitley, who will go down as arguably the greatest Hokie of all time. Kitley is a 3x AP All-American, 3x ACC Player of the Year, and an ACC All-Freshman player. As of right now, Virginia Tech also has the eighth-ranked 2024 recruiting class, per ESPN. Most likely, he’ll bring over some of that firepower to Lexington.

Oh, and the newly renovated Memorial Coliseum

If the on-the-court stuff wasn’t exciting enough for you, then how about the new and improved Memorial Coliseum? As the official UK page notes, “substantial completion is set for Fall 2024”, meaning the new-look Memorial Coliseum should be ready to go by the time the 2024-25 season starts.

To sum things up, it’s an exciting time for the Kentucky women’s basketball program. It’s on the up and up while other UK programs are cloudy at the moment. Of course, the ultimate goal should be for all of the programs to exceed, but that’s the reality we live in.

However, as the game of women’s basketball continues to grow and grow, there is no better time to immerse yourself into the UK women’s basketball diehard fandom than right now. Hop on the bandwagon before it takes off without you. Fun times await.