Two days after fourth-seeded Virginia Tech suffered a blowout loss in the second round of the women's NCAA Tournament, Hokies coach Kenny Brooks resigned to become head coach of the Kentucky Wildcats.
Brooks, a Virginia native, is leaving Blacksburg after eight seasons. He led Virginia Tech to its first Final Four appearance in 2023 and posted a 180-82 record since taking over in 2017. In Lexington, Brooks will replace Kyla Elzy, who was fired this month after back-to-back losing seasons.
In 22 seasons as a Division I head coach, Brook posted a career winning percentage of .717. His only losing record came in 2003-04, his second year at James Madison, where he coached for 14 years before joining Virginia Tech. Brooks was 8-4 against SEC teams for the Hokies.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, Virginia Tech led the ACC in offensive efficiency and effective field goal percentage in 2023-24, while Kentucky ranked last in both categories last season.
How will Brooks fit into the SEC? What direction will Virginia Tech take going forward? Let's take a look.
What Brooks brings to Kentucky
Kentucky had the most success in women's basketball under coach Matthew Mitchell, reaching the Elite Eight three times in four seasons from 2010-2013. After she retired just before the 2020-21 season due to her health and family reasons, Elzy was promoted from an assistant role to head coach and led the Wildcats to the program's second SEC Tournament championship in 2022.
Although Kentucky has had great success, it has also had some down years. For a long time, it was difficult to be the “other” basketball program in Big Blue Nation. This isn't all that different from the situation for women's hoops teams at places like Kansas, Duke and North Carolina, where the spotlight sometimes falls on legendary men's programs.
That gradually changed over the years, allowing that spotlight to expand to other sports at those schools as well. We know how much love there is for basketball in Kentucky, and Brooks will be able to capitalize on that.
There are advantages and disadvantages to joining the SEC. From a conference stability standpoint, the SEC is rock solid. SEC programs are widely known. But the league has been dominated by one program for the past decade, South Carolina, and Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley shows no signs of slowing down.
Additionally, LSU is the defending national champion and perennial NCAA Tournament programs like Texas and Oklahoma join the SEC. Even during the so-called off-season, conferences are piling up.
This must have been a difficult transition for Brooks, a Virginia native who had spent his entire coaching career up to this point in Virginia. Now he's moved from commonwealth to commonwealth, from a league where the Hokies won a regular-season title this year to one where achieving that is as difficult as winning a national championship. But his success at James Madison University and Virginia Tech is a good sign that he's up to the challenge. — Michael Vaupel
What does Brooks' departure mean for Virginia Tech?
The 2024-25 season was already scheduled to be a transition season for the Hokies after three-time ACC Player of the Year Elizabeth Kitley finished her college career. And there was no guarantee that fourth-year All-American Georgia Amoore would stay for a fifth year. But with Brooks gone and likely the rest of the program to go with him, Blacksburg faces the difficult task of keeping the Hokies at the level they achieved under Brooks.
Arriving ahead of the 2016-17 season, it took Brooks time to build a fan base that made Virginia Tech an ACC and All-American contender and one of the most passionate schools in the nation. Athletic director Whit Babcock must find a leader who can maintain a strong sense of culture within the program and keep the program from reverting to an era of irrelevance (the Hokies had their first winning record in ACC play under Brooks). , but went 15 years without making the NCAAs (before making his first tournament appearance under him in 2021).
Sean Poppy, who worked under Brooks for many years at Virginia Tech and was a logical successor to Brooks, has reportedly accepted the head coaching job at Clemson University as of Tuesday morning. It is being It will be interesting to see what kind of candidates Blacksburg is able to attract in this college sports environment with so much uncertainty within the ACC. — Alexa Philippou