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Sitting out of all contact training since early October and Kentucky’s first nine games of the season with a troublesome calf injury, sophomore forward Keion Brooks Jr. back with vengeance.
Brooks finished with 12 points on 6-8 shooting, six rebounds, four assists, one block and one steal in 24 minutes. conference.
After months of uncertainty and practice restrictions, British head coach John Calipari was delighted to have once again become a “regular force” in the Kentucky line-up.
“The only thing he couldn’t do with us was something about contact. He was practicing, conditioning, and I said, “You better, because we’ll know something in the next few days.” Your better condition. “And he was,” said Calipari. “He’s just a disciplined, conscientious (player). Nice to have a steady worker. … There was a lot of good.”
The impressive debut performance comes after an emotional week for the sophomore forward, in which he expected news of yet another delayed return of team doctors.
“I told the team this when he spoke to the doctors, he seemed terrified, thought it would take longer. Hands were shaking. He came to me, they cleared him, and he and I got emotional and I hugged him. “
After the news, Brooks wasn’t concerned about where he would fit in the rotation or how many minutes he would get right away. The seasoned attacker cared only about doing what was best for the team.
Given the team’s recent public and private unrest, Calipari was quick to use Brooks’ response and the overall message as a lesson to the team.
“I said,” I have to figure out how to slide you in. “He said,” Coach, I trust you, you do what you think is best for this team. “I told the team,” said Calipari. “I said,” Think of one of you. You’re going to be immersed. and some of you say, “Why did you endorse me ?!” Think about you. Think about how he responded to this. He’s a leader by example. He’s not a confrontational man, that’s not who he is. “
As for field presence, Brooks immediately built on his impressive year-end performance in Gainesville last March, carrying himself with poise and confidence. You could see the slight rust, but Brooks more often than not made the right scoring, passing and defensive decisions.
“You saw what kind of athlete he is,” Calipari said. ‘You can see that he is much stronger physically than where he was. He is much more patient mentally, the game has slowed down for him. It’s a big deal. We played without him, I mean come on. “
Calipari compared Brooks to an on-field coach and praised the sophomore forward for his guidance and leadership on his season debut.
“He can calm them down on the field, so he takes it from our staff,” said the UK head coach. “That’s what makes it great, in the state of Mississippi, how we did it without him. How we did it and how they stayed together. He is a great young man, a great person, a great teammate and a skilled basketball player. Very talented. “
Graduate transfer guard Davion Mintz, who joined Brooks for the first time in his career, struggled to come up with words to describe the 1.85-meter forward’s play in his debut. Simply put, he was a game changer.
“You saw the game, you saw it,” said Mintz. “He gave us a completely different element to the game. Keion was great today. It was great fun. I am really speechless. It was amazing.”
Strangely, Mintz felt that an impressive day was coming for Brooks after talking to him during the pre-match warm-ups. There were no nerves, no pressure.
Brooks was just grateful to be back on the ground.
“Keion has had good practice. He is relaxing. But in order not to discredit his practices, nothing seems to be at stake. He just flipped another switch, it was great, ”said Mintz. “We were testing it to see what it can do. … We knew he was going to play well, but we didn’t know he was going to come and make the impact he did. That’s just an asset to his job and rehab, the guys who helped him.
“… He has no pressure on him. He told me before the game, “I just go out and have fun, I have nothing to lose. I am just blessed to play now. Once I saw that he had that attitude, I knew, “Okay, good day to Keion.” And he did. “
As for Brooks, he was confident in his ability to produce on his debut, thanking Kentucky strength trainer Rob Harris for keeping him in game form while his calf injury kept him out of the competition.
“I’ve always believed in my ability to come back and play well. I was constantly training and kept in top shape, ”said Brooks. “Big shout out to coach Rob Harris, our strength trainer. I don’t even call him that, he’s so much more than that. Not only did he do a great job keeping me in top shape, but I spent a lot of time with him so he was always in my ear to stay positive. The conversations we had, he really helped me get through what I was going through. “
Above all, production aside, Brooks was just happy to serve as the leader for a team desperate for one since the start of the season. He wanted to bring a positive, infectious attitude, and it rubbed off on his teammates.
‘You hit the nail on the head, my leadership. I’m just trying to bring energy and hopefully my energy is contagious to my teammates, ”said Brooks. “They also did a great job of helping me stay with me the entire time I was injured. I didn’t want to go out and let them down, not play by their standards, not be as involved as they, not have as much energy as they would have. That works both ways.
“My leadership really depended on them and them, which allowed me to be a leader. It went well tonight. ”