Virginia Tech AD calls new Kentucky WBB HC Kenny Brooks 'best developer of players' he's ever seen

The folks at Virginia Tech might (understandably) be slightly upset about losing head coach Kenny Brooks to Kentucky on Tuesday. The Hokies beating UK to the punch on announcing the deal felt slightly personal.

But at least publicly, Virginia Tech athletic director Whit Babcock has nothing but good things to say about his now-former women’s basketball coach.

“(Brooks) was the best developer of players and a teacher of the game that I’ve probably ever seen in any sport,” Babcock told reporters on Wednesday morning, according to Andy Bitter of Tech Sideline.

Babcock, who noted a coaching search to replace Brooks has not yet begun, has been Virginia Tech’s AD since 2014 and has previous athletic department stops at West Virginia (assistant AD), Missouri (associate AD), and Cincinnati (AD). As an athletic director, he’s cleared the hirings of coaches such as Tommy Tuberville (football), Buzz Williams (men’s basketball), Pete D’Amour (softball), and Tony Robie (wrestling) — all of whom experienced on-field/court success.

But none were better, in his eyes, than Kenny Brooks, who went to four straight NCAA Tournaments to close his tenure at Virginia Tech, including a Final Four appearance in 2023. Brooks helped develop several future WNBA players, including current Hokie Elizabeth Kitley, a three-time ACC Player of the Year winner. Brooks’ teams get better year after year and win plenty of games along the way.

Babcock went on to talk about Brooks moving on from Virginia Tech to Kentucky, wishing the head coach well on his way to Lexington. He snuck in a line about how UK contacted Brooks before the season ended (saying that is more commonplace in today’s era), and then touched on part of the how it all went down– how Kentucky and athletic director Mitch Barnhart were able to lure Brooks, a native of Virginia who has coached in some capacity in the state since 1994, to the Bluegrass.

“I guess Kentucky’s budget, maybe $30-40 million more a year than ours and yeah, they can push some more into it,” Babcock said. “I don’t think it’s an automatic path to the Final Four or maybe Kentucky would have been there previously on the women’s side, but it does make things easier. And if Kenny was looking for a challenge at the highest level and you have the resources, certainly it helps, but he didn’t present it as ‘I’m disappointed in Virginia Tech.’ It was just part of a dialogue about, ‘Are there things that you feel that we can’t offer?’

“He certainly knows we could do more, and he certainly knows we have limitations… but what I’m trying to express was it was all really cordial. I think people naturally look for somebody to blame, and you do this long enough, it was just one of those things, I don’t think there’s any blame to go around.”

Babcock mentioned that Brooks came to him and was impressed with what Kentucky was offering him: a bigger recruiting budget, an upgraded Memorial Coliseum, more money for assistant coaches, etc. Ultimately, it was too much of an opportunity to turn down.

“He knew he was appreciated,” Babcock added. “He knew that door was open and he made the decision he felt was best for him.”