Teonni Key, left, with her mother, Tammy Brown, and sister, Tamari Key who played at Tennessee.
Teonni Key was a top 10 player in the 2021 recruiting class and named a McDonald’s All-American when she signed with North Carolina after missing her high school senior season due to COVID. However, she also missed her first season at North Carolina after suffering a knee injury (torn ACL) in a preseason scrimmage with South Carolina.
If that wasn’t enough, she missed the first 10 games of her redshirt sophomore season after suffering a stress fracture in her left foot two days before the season opener. That led to more limited playing time and she averaged only 2.5 point, 2.5 rebounds and 9.9 minutes in her two years at North Carolina despite her immense skill set.
That led to a transfer to Kentucky where coach Kenny Brooks has already called her “one of the most impressive defensive rebounders” he has ever coached.
She is averaging 11.5 points, 9.3 rebounds, 2.8 blocks, 2.4 assists, 1.0 steals and 28.1 minutes per game. Key is also shooting 53.1 percent from the field and has been one of the biggest surprises on UK’s team. However, her mother, Tammy Brown Key, has not been surprised.
“She has always had an amazing work ethic. Both my girls (her oldest daughter, Tamari Key, played at Tennessee) are the earned, not given, type. They grew up knowing you had to want this to be great. I was the transporter. Kids getting up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. for AAU practice and travel ball was not always easy but they knew I did it for them.
“Teonni wanted to be a positionless player. I told her that her journey would always be harder than her sister’s who played in the post. Teonni had to expand her shooting and ball handling. She had to work to move her feet. I had big kids but I told them I was not going to have big, slow kids.
“What you are seeing now is who she really is playing for someone who wants to see her be successful and bring the best out of her.”
Brown said the UK junior has had to be “mentally tough” to deal with her various setbacks. Her mother said Key never got significant playing time after coming back from her second injury at North Carolina and coaches also wanted to play her at center.
“She can play the 3 or stretch 4 and has done that all her life,” the UK player’s mother said. “When she came back from that second injury she was only allowed to play with her back to the basket and that was another big mental hurdle for her.’
She encouraged her daughter to have conversations with the North Carolina coaches but never encouraged her daughter to transfer. She merely told her to evaluate what was best for her and Key decided her situation was not going to change.
“She decided to go a different direction. Out of high school (former UK coaches) Matthew Mitchell and Kyra Elzy had recruited her. She loved Kentucky but UNV was 20 minutes from home and it just came down to staying closer to home instead of going to Kentucky,” Tammy Brown Key said. “She loved Matthew and Kyra.
“Kenny Brooks recruited both of my girls and has known both of them a long time. They loved him but were not drawn to Blacksburg (where Virginia Tech is located). But when UNC played Virginia Tech, we always talked after the games. We kept an amazing relationship with him and we just looked at it like God aligned things for her to get to play for a coach she already had a connection with and what he had done. We reached out after he got hired at Kentucky and he knew what she was capable of doing.”
Key committed to Brooks and UK before she left her official visit.
“She had the talent but just as important coach Brooks and his staff helped her find her way knowing how good she is but was not rewarded in the past,” she said. “I had to make sure he and his staff knew the mental part was critical and get her to the place where she remembered how good she was and knew how important she is as a player.”
