In the hour following Kentucky women’s basketball’s season-ending Sweet 16 loss to Texas on Saturday, UK coach Kenny Brooks evaluated his first two seasons at the helm as “a tremendous success.”

“It’s been unbelievable,” Brooks said. “It’s been everything and more than I expected. I didn’t have to leave. Didn’t have to come here. I had a very comfortable situation, and I wanted more. I wanted to be on this stage. I wanted to be on this stage consistently.”

After 14 seasons coaching James Madison, his alma mater, to consistent success in the CAA, and eight years building Virginia Tech into an ACC contender — and a Final Four team in its 47th year of varsity status — Brooks accepted a job as the ninth coach in the history of Kentucky women’s basketball.

On March 28, 2024, Brooks labeled UK “a sleeping giant,” as he did the Hokies’ program back in 2016.

Brooks inherited a program that — despite some highs in its history — hadn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 2022, hadn’t won an NCAA Tournament game since 2021, hadn’t recorded a 20-win season since 2020 and hadn’t reached the Sweet 16 since 2016.

Prior to his arrival, it had become the expectation that Kentucky would not only be absent from national rankings but also that it would finish near the bottom of the SEC standings.

But in two seasons, Brooks has won three NCAA Tournament games. He’s captured the attention of top prospects, particularly through the point guard play of transfers Georgia Amoore in Year 1 and Tonie Morgan in Year 2. He’s overseen the continued growth of All-American center Clara Strack and made the Cats regulars in The Associated Press Top 25.

“I think that we’ve done a pretty good job of tickling it (the sleeping giant) to wake it up a little bit,” Brooks said. “Now we want to get over top with continuing to capitalize on the momentum that we have, and if we’re able to do that, then I think that we’ll be where we want to be next year.”

Still, it hasn’t been a steady upward trajectory.

Amoore, who followed Brooks to UK after four years together at Virginia Tech, exhausted her eligibility after last season, and though Kentucky returned three starters in Strack and forwards Amelia Hassett and Teonni Key, Brooks’ roster needed an overhaul.

He found and ultimately molded another transfer point guard – Morgan adapted to a new role, scoring more than she had as a facilitator-first guard at Georgia Tech – added key transfers in Liberty’s Asia Boone and Western Kentucky’s Josie Gilvin. He brought in McDonald’s All-American and five-star prospect Kaelyn Carroll and Swedish center Elsa Vadfors.

UK welcomed back former Penn star Jordan Obi, who transferred in ahead of Brooks’ first season but sustained a season-ending, lower-leg injury during the summer but lost former Oregon State guard Dominika Paurová, who also suffered a season-ending injury in the 2024 offseason prior to what was meant to be her UK debut, re-tore her ACL ahead of this year’s campaign.

The resulting roster was good enough for a No. 24 preseason ranking and an uneven regular season.

There were signs of potential. Morgan adapted to her new role; Strack and Key looked to be better than ever; Hassett had value beyond her sharp shooting; Boone emerged as a first-rate 3-point threat — but cracks in the foundation showed, too.

There were dazzling highs. The Cats beat rival Louisville at the KFC Yum Center as part of a 13-1 nonconference finish and opened SEC play with a stirring win at previously unbeaten LSU on Morgan’s buzzer-beater, UK’s first win in Baton Rouge since Jan. 2019.

It was Brooks’ first-ever head-to-head win against LSU coach Kim Mulkey and a result that the UK coach said would be “a really good win for our program.”

But maintaining momentum proved a challenge.

Kentucky was turnover prone — it had a regular-season-high 23 in a loss at Texas and topped that by one in the Sweet 16 loss to the Longhorns — and though its starting five frequently thrived, its lack of depth was a lingering issue.

But if the Cats could earn a statement win like beating LSU at the Maravich Assembly Center, what was the ceiling for Brooks’ second-year UK squad?

After an easy win over Missouri in the Jan. 4 SEC home opener, UK was rewarded with a No. 6 ranking in the AP Top 25 — the program’s highest since 2015 under former head coach Matthew Mitchell.

Then came a wrench in the plan.

A ‘Key’ injury

Key dislocated an elbow during a win over Missouri. Brooks believed then that Key would return.

“It could be a couple of weeks,” Brooks said at the time, “it could be a little longer.”

What followed was a frustrating, eight-game stretch for the program, during which Kentucky lost to Alabama, Mississippi State, Tennessee and Georgia — teams it mostly should have beten even without Key. That seemed especially true given that the Cats also earned their second top-five win of the year with Key sidelined, a five-point home win over Oklahoma, which marked the first time in program history Kentucky had ever knocked off a pair of top-five teams in the same season.

Brooks was particularly disappointed following the one-point loss at Tennessee, after which he gave an answer that quickly went viral online.

“This is SEC basketball,” Brooks said. “I think we set women’s basketball back about 15 years today with the way both teams played…I wouldn’t have paid to watch it.”

Without Key, Kentucky suffered a three-game losing streak, its longest of the Brooks era.

It got so dire that the Cats limped to victory over lowly Florida, allowing 89 points at home to a team that months later would fire its head coach after its fourth straight missed NCAA Tournament.

By the time it hit the regular season home stretch, UK had lost six conference games with five to play, falling out of contention for a coveted double-bye in the SEC Tournament.

“I think we grew a little bit,” Brooks after a competitive loss to South Carolina that closed the regular season. “It’s been kind of a crazy season where I feel like we just haven’t been able to get a rhythm. Obviously, we’re probably playing our best basketball in the first part of January, and then you have to reinvent yourself. I can keep talking about it, and it’s not an excuse; it’s just our why, where we are. We’re excited about the next steps, postseason play, and I think we’ve proven we can play with anyone in the country.”

Postseason ups and downs

Forced to play on the opening day of the SEC Tournament for the first time since the final season under Elzy, Kentucky steamrolled through games against Arkansas and Georgia.

But a visibly tired UK team couldn’t keep up with South Carolina in its quarterfinal matchup, losing 87-64; UK turned the ball over 19 times, which the Gamecocks converted into 25 points.

Though Brooks said afterward that Kentucky felt that “we deserve to host,” he also confirmed that the group wasn’t going to be made or broken by its status as a No. 4 or No. 5 seed.

“We’ll go anywhere and play anybody,” Brooks said. “That’s how much confidence we have in each other.”

Kentucky ultimately was sent to Morgantown, West Virginia for the NCAA Tournament’s first weekend as the No. 5 seed.

Its opening nearly mirrored last season’s disappointment in Lexington.

A celebrated, tightknit group posted a double-digit victory over mid-major in the first round (James Madison this season, Liberty a year ago). Last season, No. 5 seed Kansas State edged out the fourth-seeded hosts at Memorial Coliseum.

Kentucky’s second-round date with West Virginia was eerily similar.

But this year, the Cats were on the right side of the hopeful heave in the final moments of the game, achieving a breakthrough to the second weekend of the tournament.

Kentucky didn’t play its best game in its final game of the year. In fact, it reset its season-high turnover total (24) against Texas in its rematch with the Longhorns.

But if Brooks gets his way, the future will view UK’s mere presence in Fort Worth as a milestone moment for the program.

“I said this to somebody yesterday, and it kind of sounded funny when I said it out loud,” Brooks said Saturday. “We’ve been ranked every day that we’ve been here. That’s tremendous. A testament to my staff, to the support that we’ve been given to be able to go out there and put Kentucky women’s basketball back on the map and be able to go out there and compete against teams like Texas, like the South Carolinas.”

How can UK build on that successful trajectory?

Kentucky’s next steps

In the often-volatile current atmosphere of collegiate athletics and with the heavy emphasis placed on success for football and men’s basketball in Lexington, is Brooks capable of taking Kentucky to the elite tier of women’s basketball?

“We’re close,” Brooks said. “I talk about the investment. I talk about just the confidence that we have from our administration and what we can do…I am not one of those guys that’s going to sit up here and say you have to have the most money to compete, but you need to be able to have the investment put into you.”

According to data obtained by AL.com, UK isn’t a direct peer to Sweet 16 opponent Texas when it comes to SEC spending. NCAA financial reports from the 2025 fiscal year show that Kentucky ranked seventh in women’s basketball spending among public schools in the league.

South Carolina led the way in women’s basketball spending during the 2025 fiscal year with more than $13.1 million, followed by LSU and Texas; each program spent upwards of $10 million, the only SEC teams to do so.

The Gamecocks, Tigers and Longhorns have also been three of the most successful teams on a national level in recent history, and — with the caveat that Texas only joined the league ahead of the 2024-25 season — have been regular faces near the top of the SEC.

Tennessee (about $9.1M) ranked fourth in women’s basketball spending during the 2025 fiscal year, followed by Oklahoma (about $8.6M), then Ole Miss (about $8.5M) just ahead of Kentucky (nearly $7.6 million).

Following Saturday’s loss to Texas, Brooks said UK women’s basketball has “continued to get the support that allows us to be able to” succeed at a high level and remain attractive to top-tier prospects.

While it’s unclear how retiring athletics director Mitch Barnhart’s successor will allocate UK’s resources, Brooks — a coach who understands what it takes to reach the third weekend of the NCAA Tournament — has made a strong case for the continued investment in Kentucky women’s basketball.

“It is my job that I have to spread it (the investment) out the right way,” Brooks said. “I have to make good decisions on kids bringing them in, and that’s how you’re able to compete at different levels.”

A roster retool

Brooks has one key piece to a competitive 2027. He announced that Strack will return for her senior season.

But she’s the only starter and/or major impact player with remaining eligibility. UK will say goodbye to Morgan, Hassett, Key and Obi. Backup guard Josie Gilvin is also out of eligibility.

While it’s likely that junior guard Gabby Brooks (the coach’s daughter), Boone and Carroll, will return for another year with the program, Vadfors and Paurová will have decisions to make. Sophomore guard Lexi Blue confirmed a report of her intentions to enter the transfer portal via Instagram post Tuesday evening.

The program will welcome its highest-ranking recruiting class in program history, as McDonald’s All-Americans Maddyn Greenway — the team’s projected point guard of the future — and Long Island Lutheran products Emily McDonald and Savvy Swords make their way to Lexington this summer.

“In a very short amount of time we’ve attracted tremendous young people to come and represent the University of Kentucky,” Brooks said. “And I think that they’ve done it in a magnificent way.”

Kentucky’s coaching staff plans to once again attack the transfer portal — a key aspect of the program’s success under Brooks — to further bolster the 2026-27 roster.

Through his first two years, all of Brooks’ Kentucky starters have arrived via portal.

Amoore and Morgan, a Nancy Lieberman Point Guard of the Year finalist this season, each reset UK’s single-season assists record, which stood for more than 40 years, in consecutive seasons.

Dazia Lawrence and Obi committed to Kentucky with the understanding that they would no longer be the top options they were at their previous stops, and each helped push the program back to the national spotlight.

Boone grew tremendously in one season at UK, working her way into the starting lineup and providing a necessary spark out the gate for her teammates, typically from beyond the arc.

Strack, who already holds multiple program records, has the potential to graduate as one of the best to ever wear the uniform when she enters the WNBA Draft next year.

Moving forward, Brooks will look for players like Hassett — a former junior college star turned SEC starter — and Key, the 2021 McDonald’s All-American who was a bench player at North Carolina before serving an indelible role in Kentucky’s turnaround.

Brooks got two program-transforming starting seasons from the duo, which he said caused him “as much emotion at the end of a season that my four-year seniors that I’ve ever coached had caused.”

“Because those two in particular…they took a chance on me, on us, the vision,” Brooks said. “Came here blindly excited for what we could accomplish. Even through adversity from the very first week we were here, they’ve just adjusted and adapted in a way that has really made me extremely proud to have been their coach.

As was the case with Morgan’s succession of Amoore, Brooks and his staff won’t look to replace the likes of Hassett, Key and whoever else doesn’t return for the 2026-27 campaign; Brooks won’t ask next year’s team to fill the shoes of the players who lifted Kentucky to its first Sweet 16 berth in a decade, instead, he’ll ask them to “bring their own.”

Brooks grades the first two years of his Kentucky tenure with high marks, though admits he wants to continue to improve upon what’s already been achieved.

“I love my time that we’ve spent here,” Brooks said. “I would call it a tremendous success, but we won’t rest on our laurels. We’ll probably be talking about some stuff for next year when we’re on the plane going back, but that’s how hard-working a group that we have. I think the future is bright for us.”

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