As the younger generation would say, "Kenny Brooks is cooking!!"
The new women's head basketball coach has been on a recruiting tear unlike any one we've seen since the Matthew Mitchell era. Just earlier today it was announced that Clara Silva will be flipping her commitment from Virginia Tech to Kentucky to play under the coach she previously committed to in Kenny Brooks.
Silva is a 6'7" center from Portugal and is one of, if not the best, international players in next year's class. The Kentucky commit had several of top offers across the country but originally chose the Hokies over UConn, Tennessee, Maryland, Louisville, and North Carolina as the finalists. Once Brooks made his way to Lexington, she followed shortly afterwards.
From what I have seen, Clara Silva is extremely talented to say the least with a definite size advantage that could help her be an instant-impact player at Kentucky in her freshman season. She has performed well on the international level for Portugal where she averaged 18.1 points, 11.6 rebounds, 2.3 blocks, 1.6 assists, and 1.3 steals per game at the recent European U-18 Championships. With Silva playing alongside sophomore Clara Strack who stands at 6'5", Kentucky's frontcourt is looking quite dangerous thus far.
Have you ever performed a total renovation on your home? If so you know how tedious of a job that can be. Well, that is exactly what the new Kentucky women's basketball coach is doing since his transition in from Blacksburg, Virginia, to Lexington, Kentucky. Brooks has essentially started with half a roster after the dismissal of former head coach, Kyra Elzy. Before Kenny arrived in Lexington, five of Kentucky's players from the previous season had already entered their names into the transfer portal. So, a lot of unknowns surrounded this program as they brought in the new person in charge.
Those five include Janae Walker, Maddie Scherr, Ajae Petty, Eniya Russell and Nyah Leveretter. Since Brooks' arrival there have been a couple more Lady Cats to enter their names into the portal discussion - Brooklynn Miles and Jordy Griggs. If you are keeping up with the roster moves, this only leaves Cassidy Rowe, Amiya Jenkins, and Saniah Tyler from last season's roster for the upcoming year. However, with the five new additions to the roster for the new coach there is still plenty of room for Kenny Brooks to continue molding his roster for the upcoming year, so who knows which players might decide to just return to the program or which others will decide to come into the program for the first time.