‘She is the Key.’ Teonni Key’s path to a breakout season with Kentucky women’s basketball.
Kenny Brooks likes to tell his inaugural Kentucky roster that he’s looking for “perfect intent.”
Success isn’t about delivering a perfect performance every day, in practice or against competition. It’s not about stuffing the stat sheet, or ranking among the sport’s best in any given category. It’s not even about holding a perfect record — though the No. 14 Wildcats, at the time of the writing of this story, stood 7-0 with a pair of ranked wins entering December.
Redshirt junior forward Teonni Key, who arrived alongside Brooks from the Atlantic Coast Conference after a few years at North Carolina, would tell you she’s “kind of a perfectionist,” but that she’s finding it’s the intention behind actions that truly matters.
“Understanding that it’s OK,” Key said. “Having grace with myself. It’s not going to be perfect, but as long as you’re intentional and looking at the goodness of it all. Because it’s a privilege to be in the position that we’re in. Any D-I athlete, really, so just having a lot of gratitude. I’ve really been focusing on that and just being intentional every day, showing up for everyone every day.”
For Key, showing up has never been a problem. But, this season, she’s showing out in ways not seen before in her college career. The 6-foot-4 starter entered Thursday night’s matchup against No. 16 North Carolina on a three-game double-double streak, and held averages of 12.3 points, 9.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists and a team-high 3.6 blocks per contest, the latter of which put her third overall in college basketball.
Brooks calls her “the ‘Key’” to the Wildcats’ success, “pun intended,” and it’s not hard to see why.
“She is the key to what we’re going to do,” Brooks said after the Wildcats’ Nov. 12 rout of Wofford. “I feel like I know that she’s going to give us certain things.”
Key ranked No. 9 nationally in the high school class of 2021 after a decorated career at Cary High School (N.C.), and was named a McDonald’s All-American and a member of the Jordan Brand Classic Girls National Team prior to stepping foot on campus in Chapel Hill — which sits just about 30 minutes from Key’s hometown.
“It’s a hoops state,” Key said before making her homecoming Thursday night in the SEC/ACC Challenge. “And a lot of great people have come through North Carolina, basketball-wise, and other sports, too. So, yeah, of course, I definitely feel (a sense of pride for the state). You know, obviously you’ve got the college rivalries that have been going on there for decades, too. So that’s always huge. Basketball’s huge in North Carolina.”
Also a successful track and field athlete, Key ran the 400- and 200-meter races, plus garnered national attention for her skills in the high jump, which took her all the way to the finals at the 2018 New Balance Nationals, where she placed 10th.
Key also happens to be the younger sister of former Lady Vol Tamari Key, who served as a defensive standout and key piece of Tennessee’s roster during her career; she also holds the Tennessee women’s basketball record for career blocks with 347.
Teonni’s decision to “stay home” and play for the Tar Heels was an electric achievement for head coach Courtney Banghart. Not to mention, Key signed to North Carolina with three other top-20 prospects in the class — guards Kayla McPherson (No. 17) and Morasha Wiggins (No. 18) and wing Destiny Adams (No. 20). The latter two have since transferred to Arizona State and Rutgers, respectively.
All that to say, Key’s ceiling was — and remains to be — quite high. However, an ACL tear suffered in late October of her freshman year during a preseason scrimmage delayed her collegiate debut. She also missed the first 10 games of her redshirt sophomore season because of an injury. Key’s on-court performance never met the sky-high expectations that come with being a top-10 prospect; over the course of two active seasons at North Carolina, she averaged 2.5 points and 2.5 rebounds in 9.9 minutes per contest.
‘We know you as a player’
After last season, Key chose to enter the transfer portal. That same day, she received a call from Brooks while she was getting her nails done.
“It was a lot,” Key said. “... It was a pretty quick call. It was him saying, you know, ‘We want you here at Kentucky.’ Obviously, he was going through a lot of the transition at that point. So he was just like, ‘We know you as a player,’ and stuff like that, and just really sold me the vision for what he wanted to do at Kentucky. It was a nice phone call.”
Key, who had only made the trip to Lexington once prior (during her high school recruitment), took a visit with Brooks and his staff. According to Brooks, it didn’t take her long to decide that Kentucky was the perfect place for the next chapter of her career.
“When she came here to visit, I think she was here 12 hours and she committed,” Brooks said. “She was like, ‘I’m coming,’ because she wanted to be a part of it. She saw what we did at Virginia Tech. I think we beat them, what, six, seven, eight straight times? And she wanted to be a part of that. And she’s grown so much, and I think she’s going to continue to grow. Having her for two years, I’m very, very excited about it. She’s going to get better and better and better.”
Separate from UNC’s matchups against the Hokies, the 21-year-old Key has known Brooks for about a decade through both her and her sister’s recruitments. “It’s funny, I’ve got a picture where I was taller than her,” Brooks laughed. The difference maker for Key this time around was, ultimately, the relationship, and trusting in the vision he had for Kentucky.
“Knowing him personally from the recruiting process prior and stuff like that,” Key said. “And obviously playing against his teams for however many years. Seeing them for however many years, just watching what he did at Virginia Tech, just knowing something great — regardless of him coming here — it was going to be something great building here too, just because of his record in the past, and, what he’s able to do with his players, not only basketball-wise, but you know, as people and just the community that has built around the teams that he has led. I think that’s the biggest thing.”
The adjustment went well, and Key said it also helped that “everyone was in that transitional period of something new,” with 11 new faces on the UK roster and a complete change in coaching staff.
“I think it actually made things easier,” Key said. “Because we were all in it together, going through it together, acclimating together, learning together. And I think that helped a lot with everyone and everything, just community-wise, as a team, our chemistry. We’re all just figuring it out together.”
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Kentucky players learning to trust each other
And figuring it out, they are. Entering Thursday night, the Wildcats were one of just six undefeated teams in the Southeastern Conference. They led the nation in blocks per game (10.3), and had — per UK Sports Network statistician Corey Price — two wins against Associated Press Top 25 teams in November for the first time in program history.
Some wins have been more difficult than others, especially when UK — down projected contributors Jordan Obi and Dominika Paurová due to injuries — faces formidable opponents in quick succession.
UK’s first statement opportunity of the Brooks era came Nov. 16, when the then-No. 18 Louisville Cardinals took the Wildcats to overtime before falling for the first time in the Battle of the Bluegrass since 2015. Two days later, an exhausted UK squad eked out a win over Purdue Fort Wayne.
During the Music City Classic — which tasked the Wildcats with back-to-back days of power conference opponents in Nashville ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday — UK handled Arizona State on Tuesday but struggled to pull away from then-No. 19 Illinois until the fourth quarter.
“This is something we focused on after our Louisville game,” Key said. “Having a quick turnaround, being able to bounce back after a quick turnaround. And this one against Illinois being even quicker. … But in that second half, really, just the whole game, yeah, we were a bit tired. And shots just weren’t falling. But, you know, we kept shooting them. In that halftime talk, there was no negative, like, ‘Come on, y’all.’ There was no bad energy because we knew we were fine, and the shots were gonna fall and we just had to keep playing our basketball, keep shooting it, and doing what the coaches were asking.”
Lacking in depth, still working to find a true sense of chemistry and understanding how best to employ its strengths and overcome its weaknesses, Kentucky persists. According to Key, the new-look Wildcats have — despite the short time they’ve played together — developed a strong sense of trust.
“Yes, we’ve won all seven games, but they haven’t been perfect,” Key said. “You know, we’ve had some tough ones where we were down, and didn’t expect to be. So I think our ability to, in those moments, stay together and — I guess it sounds cliche, but not give up on one another — I think that has just been remarkable, because in those moments, that’s where we really come together and really dive in. I feel like that’s pretty rare, just being in the situation we’re in. We know each other, and we know, we are the better team. We might not be playing like it right now, but we know what to do. We know who to get the ball to. We know we trust each other.
“That’s just been the most amazing part, really, just seeing our ability to bounce back from things that aren’t really going our way. Or adversity even in tough practices or a hard game, or film the next day, stuff like that, just being able to lean on each other and bounce back from the hard and handle adversity well together.”
North Carolina, the Wildcats’ next challenge, was likely to provide plenty of adversity.
The Tar Heels — who, as of Thursday morning ranked No. 22 in the NCAA’s NET, just besting the Wildcats’ No. 23 — had allowed an average of just 48.6 points per game, which rated third among Division I defenses. The game also served as Kentucky’s first true road test. Luckily for the Wildcats, for Key, it was to be a taste of the familiar.
Transferring to UK, naturally, brought some nerves for the North Carolina native. Gone are the days where her classes are simply a quick drive from her hometown. But, on Thursday, Key was once again right down the road.
Home for Key’s family travels, anyway. Tammy Brown, Key’s proud mother, has never been daunted by a little distance. For years, she’s made her way all over to support both Teonni and Tamari in their careers. That, of course, hasn’t changed at all with Key’s move to Lexington.
“She’s at a lot of games,” Key said. “She comes to Lexington all the time. I think she’s probably only missed one game in Lexington so far. So she’s everywhere. And she’ll be at North Carolina, but yeah, we’re pretty close. She’s a great parent. She’s just everywhere, really supportive and just loves me and my sister. Obviously, she’s been doing this for a little while now, so she’s got her little schedule and everything figured out, all the games she’s coming to. She’s amazing. She’s everywhere.”
Brown traveled to Nashville to catch the Music City Classic, and she was in charge of organizing the group to support Key in her homecoming to the Tar Heel State.
“I think, so far, we’re set at 17 people,” Key said. “Family, friends. My mom is in charge of all that, so she’s handling it. She’s getting everybody coming out. It’s gonna be great.”
Thursday
No. 14 Kentucky at No. 16 North Carolina
What: SEC/ACC Challenge
When: 5 p.m.
TV: ESPN2
Radio: WLAP-AM 630
Records: UK 7-0, North Carolina 7-1
Series: North Carolina leads 3-1
Last meeting: UK won 85-75 in the Paradise Jam tournament championship in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, on Nov. 24, 2018
This story was originally published December 5, 2024 at 11:46 AM.
