Teonni Key is one of five seniors UK will have playing in the NCAA Tournament against James Madison. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky coach Kenny Brooks is not complaining about being a No. 5 seed playing in Morgantown, W.Va., in the NCAA Tournament where UK opens play Saturday against James Madison, the school where Brooks got his first head coaching job.
“To get through a grueling conference schedule in the SEC, hit a little bit of adversity. I really like what our team is, where they’re playing, and we’re excited,” Brooks said Friday. “We’re excited for the opportunity laid out front of us. We’re just excited to be here.”
Here is more that Brooks, junior center Clara Strack and senior forward Teonni Key said Friday about playing James Madison on Saturday:
Q. James Madison, give us a little bit of the scout on them and what you think of them and what do you guys got to do to pull out a victory?
TEONNI KEY: I mean, yeah, they’re a good team. To make it into the tournament, you have to be. Our focus has been just playing our basketball, not taking any game for granted, going out and playing hard. Every possession matters. That’s been our biggest focus and just respecting our opponent. Every game presents its challenges so just locking in on them.
CLARA STRACK: Yeah, just what she said. We’re focusing on — obviously you don’t know your opponent for a while so you focus on yourself a lot this little break. I think, like she said. Every team in this tournament at this point is going to be a good basketball team. Every team is going to play hard because it’s either you win or you go home. We’re excited for our match-up and I think we’re ready.
Q. Coach, JMU, a program you used to know really well. What do they look like now? Is it odd facing them?
KENNY BROOKS: It’s not odd. They’re a very good basketball team. They’re well-coached. They have really good players. They have experienced players. Peyton McDaniel is a very tough, hard guard and she’s a fifth year, I think sixth year kid so she’s got a lot of experience. Barnes is a graduate player.
So they’re going to come in, they’re battle tested. They understand it. They probably had a little bit of heartbreak leading up to this year and then they got over the hump and they won a championship, so they fear no one. They played a really good schedule. We understand the challenges they present and we’re looking forward just to an opportunity to go out and to continue playing basketball.
Q. One of James Madison’s strengths is defending the glass. How much of an emphasis did you guys put on rebounding heading into this match-up for either the players or the coach?
CLARA STRACK: Rebounding is definitely something we talked about a lot. That’s something that I think we always talk about, though. We like to put a lot of pressure on the glass. We like to rebound. That’s something that we always try to beat our opponents in is our rebounding. So we definitely have talked about that a lot, yeah.
Q. For Clara and Teonni, going back to the rebounding thing, I believe JMU is top 15 in rebound margin. You all had a tough regular season going against tons of teams who can rebound really, obviously, in the SEC. How did that schedule prepare you coming into this game in terms of the battle on the boards? And what’s your mindset going into the game knowing that you’re going to have to crash the boards hard?
CLARA STRACK: Yeah, like you said, the SEC, I think the SEC schedule kind of prepares you for anything, for all these games. It’s a really tough schedule. You don’t have an easy night so I think that does prepare you for the tournament. You have to take every single game seriously. You have to be ready to play every single night and I think that’s what the SEC helps with a lot. And like you said, the rebounding, I think that’s a big part of just playing hard and refusing to lose, so I think that will help us with rebounding.
TEONNI KEY: Yeah, absolutely. To second everything she said, honestly. And knowing that we’re a good rebounding team too, we’re a big team that we get the boards offensively and defensively so I think just having that toughness and that carryover has been a big focus for us.
Q. I know it’s a reunion of you getting to face Coach O (Sean O’Regan) once again after a decade of being on the same sideline together. Have you guys had a chance to be able to catch up with one another since the selection was announced? And how have you seen Coach O take over as a head coach throughout this past decade from when he first took over to now?
KENNY BROOKS: We shared a couple of texts throughout the week, but nothing extensive, obviously. But he’s done a really good job there and James Madison is a wonderful school. It’s a wonderful athletic program. He’s done his part to keep women’s basketball afloat alongside football. Men’s basketball has done well lately. All the other Olympic sports. But it’s a wonderful school. You keep up with them as an alum and you’re very proud of what everybody has done there.
As far as the competition, it’s been ten years, ten years since I’ve been there. Hell, I don’t even know what I had for lunch yesterday. So you don’t remember a whole lot about it but you know you’re very proud of what you were able to accomplish there.
A lot of people want to make a lot to do about this particular game with me and women’s basketball, but I have just as many memories there playing on the men’s side or my friends that I had when I was in college. So ten years removed, it just really makes it another basketball game and it really does. I have coached against former assistants two years ago, three years ago. My first round opponent was my assistant, Shawn Poppie who was at Chattanooga at the time. NCAA has a funny way of making that happen a lot.
It’s ten years removed and I’m obviously proud as an alum of everything that’s happened to James Madison but tomorrow it will be another game.
Q. I know you talked about JMU’s seeding but when you have been able to look at the film throughout this last week, what’s stood out to you? What challenges to the Duke’s present?
KENNY BROOKS: They’re a good basketball team. Peyton McDaniel is a really good player. She’s big. She’s physical. I think we have size that can play around on their perimeter which may be different than some of the things that they’ve seen but she’s going to present challenges for us. Barnes is a really hard guard. Robinson. They’re good. They’re experienced. They have kids who have played at the power four level.
But they’re a good basketball team and I know you guys talked about their rebounding which is tenacious, but we’re a good rebounding team too. If you’re going to survive in the SEC, you have to be a good rebounding team. We understand that and we know that and they’re going to come out and they’re going to be hungry just like we’re going to be hungry so I think it’s going to be a really good game.
—
