By LARRY VAUGHT
Teonni Key was a top 10 player in the 2021 recruiting class and named a McDonald’s All-American when she signed with North Carolina after missing her high school senior season due to COVID. However, she also missed her first season at North Carolina after suffering a knee injury (torn ACL) in a preseason scrimmage with South Carolina.
If that wasn’t enough, she missed the first 10 games of her redshirt sophomore season after suffering a stress fracture in her left foot two days before the season opener. That led to more limited playing time and she averaged only 2.5 point, 2.5 rebounds and 9.9 minutes in her two years at North Carolina despite her immense skill set.
That led to a transfer to Kentucky where coach Kenny Brooks has already called her “one of the most impressive defensive rebounders” he has ever coached.
She is averaging 11.5 points, 9.7 rebounds, 2.9 blocks, 2.4 assists, 1.0 steals and 27.8 minutes per game. Key is also shooting 53.5 percent from the field and has been one of the biggest surprises on UK’s team. However, her mother, Tammy Brown, has not been surprised.
“She has always had an amazing work ethic. Both my girls (her oldest daughter, Tamari Key, played at Tennessee) are the earned, not given, type. They grew up knowing you had to want this to be great. I was the transporter. Kids getting up at 4 a.m. or 5 a.m. for AAU practice and travel ball was not always easy but they knew I did it for them.
“Teonni wanted to be a positionless player. I told her that her journey would always be harder than her sister’s who played in the post. Teonni had to expand her shooting and ball handling. She had to work to move her feet. I had big kids but I told them I was not going to have big, slow kids.
“What you are seeing now is who she really is playing for someone who wants to see her be successful and bring the best out of her.”
Brown said the UK junior has had to be “mentally tough” to deal with her various setbacks. Her mother said Key never got significant playing time after coming back from her second injury at North Carolina and coaches also wanted to play her at center.
“She can play the 3 or stretch 4 and has done that all her life,” Brown said. “When she came back from that second injury she was only allowed to play with her back to the basket and that was another big mental hurdle for her.’
Brown encouraged her daughter to have conversations with the North Carolina coaches but never encouraged her daughter to transfer. She merely told her to evaluate what was best for her and Key decided her situation was not going to change.
“She decided to go a different direction. Out of high school (former UK coaches) Matthew Mitchell and Kyra Elzy had recruited her. She loved Kentucky but UNV was 20 minutes from home and it just came down to staying closer to home instead of going to Kentucky,” Brown said. “She loved Matthew and Kyra.
“Kenny Brooks recruited both of my girls and has known both of them a long time. They loved him but were not drawn to Blacksburg (where Virginia Tech is located). But when UNC played Virginia Tech, we always talked after the games. We kept an amazing relationship with him and we just looked at it like God aligned things for her to get to play for a coach she already had a connection with and what he had done. We reached out after he got hired at Kentucky and he knew what she was capable of doing.”
Key committed to Brooks and UK before she left her official visit.
“She had the talent but just as important coach Brooks and his staff helped her find her way knowing how good she is but was not rewarded in the past,” Brown said. “I had to make sure he and his staff knew the mental part was critical and get her to the place where she remembered how good she was and knew how important she is as a player.”
Tennessee and Auburn, which beat Ohio State by 38 points last week, have been ranked 1-2 in the country but ESPN has projected that both will lose 4.3 conference games. Alabama and Kentucky have been both top 10 teams and ESPN projects Alabama to lose 6.4 conference games and UK 7.3.
That’s how difficult league play is going to be with the SEC projected nine league teams to win at least 20 games and two more to win 19. The SEC has had eight teams ranked in the top 25 most of the season, including five in the top 10 recently, and some analysts are predicting already that the SEC will have at least 10n NCAA Tournament teams.
“The league from top to bottom is the best conference in college basketball and it is not even close,” ESPN analyst Seth Greenberg said. “The league is special this year.
“I think Tennessee, Auburn and Alabama have separated themselves. After that I think it is a level playing field and you have to play really well. We saw what Missouri did against (No. 1) Kansas (when it won). There are only three teams in the conference that average less than 80 points. It’s going to be an incredible league.”
Kentucky has had two players — Jaxson Robinson and Kerr Kriisa — miss games with injuries already. Kentucky has also been less effective in games where opponents used the type of physical play Kentucky will see every game in SEC play.
“I think it will be a deal but maybe not a big deal,” former UK guard Cameron Mills said about the physical play. “We are playing very physical teams and have seen our shooting percentage drop and it seems likely that had something to do with it by having offense pushed out more from the basket to get started.
“Once we get into SEC play, the physicality will have a consistency to it. You will practice, practice and play a game and half will be on the road. We have gotten at least a wake-up call that physical play is a weakness but I think we have a bunch of fifth-year seniors who can respond to physical play. We beat Gonzaga not only because we out coached them but we also were more physical than them in the second half.
“The SEC will be brutal but I don’t think it will be overwhelming for this team. Sure, we’ll lose some games. But so will everybody else because everybody is good.”
Queens coach Jen Brown played for UK coach Kenny Brooks at James Madison and coached under him at both James Madison and Virginia Tech. She admires how he runs his program and after her team lost to UK, she made a bold statement about his team.
“Once he gets back his two kids who are hurt he could have an Elite 8 and Final Four team out there,” Brown said.
Those two kids are Jordan Obi, a 6-1 guard who played four years at Penn, and Dominika Paurova, a 6-1 guard who played at Oregon State her freshman season.
Obi averaged 13.7 points, 7.6 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.0 blocks and 1.0 steals per game in 83 games during her three seasons (COVID cancelled her first season at Penn). Paurova played in 35 games as a true freshman and averaged 5.5 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game on a team that reached the Elite Eight.
In late July, Kentucky announced that Obi and Paurova had both suffered lower leg injuries and were out indefinitely. However, Brown’s comments made it sound like maybe the two still maybe had a chance to play this season.
“She (Brown) was on my staff and helped me recruit Jordan to Virginia Tech, so she knows how Jordan is capable, and she got to watch Dom play a little bit too,” Brooks said. “But no, there is still no update on those two.
“We have what we have and that is what we are going with day-by-day, but she is right. You know we do miss those two kids, and it hurts us in a lot of different ways, but we have what we have.”
Tim Couch was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame last week and admitted it was a dream come true for a “small town kid from eastern Kentucky” to do all he has done.
The former Leslie County High School standout completed 795 passes for 8,435 yards and 74 touchdowns in his UK career. He finished his career with seven NCAA, 14 SEC and 26 school records. In his final season at UK in 1998, Couch completed an NCAA-record 72.3 percent of his passes for 4,275 yards and 36 touchdowns. He was the first pick in the 1999 NFL draft.
Couch made sure to promote the passion/support of Kentucky football fans during his induction process.
“Our fan base at Kentucky is phenomenal. Obviously everyone knows about our basketball program and how well supported it is by our fanbase but our football program is very supported as well,” Couch said.
“When I first got to Kentucky the program was kind of down and we got it turned around. They had to put an expansion on the stadium and built new suites and completely redid the stadium. The demand for our tickets was through the roof and it was an awesome time to be there as a player.”
Couch said it was a “long wait” for the induction after he found out in January he had been selected for induction.
“You find out and then you have to wait the rest of the football season,” he said. “Then you get here with the rest of the guys and get to celebrate. I had really been looking forward to it. Some of these guys I competed against and some grew up when they were playing. To be in this Hall of Fame class is such a humbling experience for me.”
Sophomore Delaynee Rodriguez of Las Vegas believes that Kentucky gymnastics has a “really great team” this year with a solid combination of veterans and newcomers.
“I know a lot of people always consider us underdogs and are kind of considered under everyone else in the SEC,” she said. “I am not sure why it seems like everyone looks at Kentucky as a lower SEC school. That just comes with being here but I think we have a really good team.”
Last season Kentucky was led by All-American Raena Worley and advanced to the NCAA Regional Final. Kentucky returns senior Isabella Magnelli, two-time first team all-American on beam, and senior Makenzie Wilson, a two-time all-American on vault.
Kentucky was voted No. 7 in the Women’s Collegiate Gymnastics Association (WCGA) Preseason Rankings after setting numerous individual and team records last season. Eleven players return off last year’s team along with eight newcomers that include fifth-year senior transfer Skylar Killough-Wilhelm.
The team hosted a Blue-White Meet last week and will begin its 2025 season at the Sprouts Farmers Market Collegiate Quad in Oklahoma City, Okla., on Jan. 11. The first home match will be against No. 6 Alabama on Jan. 17th.
Sophomore Creslyn Brose was a regular-season second-team all-American on floor exercise last season. Rodriguez, who was a figure skater before switching to gymnastics at an early age, competed in 10 meets in the all-around competition with a season best of 39.450 points. She competed on bars, beams and floor in all 14 meets last season.
“I really hope to have a great year,” Rodriguez said. “We all practice and train really hard and I am very, very excited about what lies ahead for us this year.”
Quote of the Week: “When I was at Winthrop we played against Kentucky in 2019 and that was a really, really good team. Go back to 2017, that was a really, really good team. In my opinion, this is the best one in the last 10 years,” Louisville coach Pat Kelsey on Mark Pope’s team before UK beat Louisville 93-85.
Quote of the Week 2: “He is such a smart player and can read the defense. The more effective he is on those one-on-one plays, the more teams have to consider a double team and that will open the 3-point shooters even more,” ESPN analyst Dane Bradshaw on UK forward Andrew Carr.
Quote of the Week 3: “He is a guy that we’ve loved from the beginning. He’s just a great person. Got a great personality. Very athletic. The size we’re looking for. He’s another guy we’re very excited about,” Mark Stoops on signee Darrin Strey, a 6-7, 310-pound offensive lineman from Paw Paw, Mich.