When Kenny Brooks became the seventh head coach in Virginia Tech women’s basketball history on March 28, 2016, he inherited a program in poor shape.
In the nine seasons between Tech’s 2006-07 team that finished 19-15 and Brooks’ arrival, the Hokies had just one season above .500. That came in the year prior to Brooks, Dennis Wolff’s final campaign in 2015-16, when his team posted an 18-14 (5-11 ACC) record.
Brooks came from James Madison, where he revived a team that had seen success from 1986-91. The Dukes made the postseason in 11 straight years in Harrisonburg prior to his departure and trek down I-81, highlighted by six NCAA Tournament appearances.
The Waynesboro, Va. native arrived in Blacksburg with a championship pedigree, having won five CAA titles. He knew it wasn’t going to be an easy road to get Virginia Tech back to the Big Dance, a place the Hokies hadn’t been since 2006.
That’s why the results, especially this year’s, have been so rewarding...because it wasn’t a snap of the fingers.
Brooks couldn’t bring in McDonald's All-Americans. He had to build Virginia Tech women’s basketball up slowly, piece by piece. Now the Hokies are riding a four-game win streak, sitting in third place in the league at 19-6 (11-3 ACC) with four games remaining.
It’s taken a lot to get to this point, and it’s a journey that started with recruiting Aisha Sheppard, the ACC’s career 3-point record holder as of Sunday, who will soon be Tech’s all-time leading scorer.
“She just looked at me, I looked at her and she said, ‘coach, this is fun,’” Brooks said of his conversation with Sheppard after the North Carolina game. “What she meant by that is when I recruited her, I said, ‘look, you’re going to be the first, and we’re going to change the culture here. There are going to be many more like you in here, and it’s going to be fun.’
“That’s why she said, ‘this is fun.’ For me to be able to see her ups and her downs and everything that she’s gone through to get to this point, because she’s gone through the lows and the highs, and there were a lot of lows in the beginning as we were trying to navigate through this. She’s been everything.”
In his first season at the helm, he recruited Sheppard to Blacksburg. That same year, Brooks led the Hokies to 20 wins and the quarterfinals of the WNIT on the backs of Vanessa Panousis, Regan Magarity, Chanette Hicks, Sidney Cook and Sami Hill.
Sheppard joined the fray for the 2017-18 season, and alongside Magarity and Taylor Emery, Tech made a run to the WNIT Championship game, where they fell to Indiana in Bloomington.
In 2018-19, it was a core of Magarity, Emery, Sheppard, Dara Mabrey and Trinity Baptiste. That group got bounced in the third round of the WNIT at James Madison.
But then, the program turned a corner. Veterans Taja Cole and Lydia Rivers joined a group of Sheppard, Mabrey and Baptiste. Elizabeth Kitley and Cayla King were true freshmen still learning the ropes. Due to COVID-19, that group didn’t have an opportunity to participate in the NCAA Tournament, finishing the season 21-9 (11-7 ACC).
It’s only been up since then. Tech made the Big Dance last year - and beat Marquette by seven in the first round before losing to Baylor - and is poised to be a top-six seed in a regional in this year’s tournament.
The Hokies control almost all of their destiny in the ACC. They have No. 3 Louisville on the road and No. 4 NC State at home over the next two weeks, and they’re the only two programs ahead of Tech in the conference.
Charlie Creme of ESPN has the Hokies as a No. 5 seed in his latest bracketology. If they make some noise down the stretch against two projected No. 1 seeds, they could be a top-four seed and have an opportunity to host a regional.
This transition didn’t happen overnight. Brooks didn’t make his house out of straw like the three little pigs. He relied on a handful of constants over the six-year experiment, headlined by Sheppard and associate head coach Shawn Poppie, and built the foundation of his program stone-by-stone.
Successes in recruiting with players like Sheppard, Kitley, King and Georgia Amoore, along with impactful transfers like Cole, Rivers and Kayana Traylor, have made Virginia Tech women’s basketball what it is today.
“We don’t get the McDonald’s All-American, but we consider the ones we have Five Guys All-Americans because they’re a step above,” Brooks said. “At Five Guys, they make your hamburger in front of you. … We’ve got to make our kids.
“We don’t have the luxury of going out and getting those McDonald’s All-Americans, so we have to make it in front of you. You have to use special kids who want that. That’s why it’s not for everyone, but the special ones will be able to elevate you.”
One of the most telling attributes was the way the Hokies responded to being behind 21-9 at the end of the first quarter in Sunday’s win over then-No. 23 North Carolina. As Sheppard put it, “a couple of years ago, we probably would’ve lost that game.”
But Brooks & Co. stuck together. And thanks to recruiting smart and talented players combined with the culture that players in the early years built, this program is reaping the benefits.
Kitley is an All-American and the best player in the ACC. Amoore is the league’s most talented and elusive point guard. Sheppard is arguably the best player in program history, and she was an All-American Honorable Mention in 2020-21.
Then there’s Traylor, a 1,000-point scorer. Azana Baines, an “enforcer,” as Brooks refers to her. Virginia Tech has solid frontcourt depth with D’asia Gregg and Emily Lytle.
That combination has helped lift the Hokies to new heights. It’s the first time they’ve ever beaten four ranked teams in one season - they got two last week vs. then-No. 11 Georgia Tech and UNC - and they’ve got their best ACC record in program history.
Yeah, there’s a bit more pressure on Brooks for his ball club to win, but the expectations have always been there. They were like that when he arrived; it just took him a little bit of time to get the program to the place where they could reach them.
Now, Virginia Tech is there. But it’s just the start of a long, challenging odyssey, and the Hokies are smart, talented and dangerous.
“When I first came here, I thought I was replacing Geno [Auriemma] at UConn,” Brooks said, “because everybody was like, ‘you come here, you better win, win, win right away.’ You have to build it. You have to build it. You’ve got to build a culture, you’ve got to build an attitude, you have to bring players in, and we built it.
“For a place like Virginia Tech to get the kids that you’re going to get to be successful, it takes a little bit of time to develop them. That’s what we’ve done, we’ve developed them. Our homegrown kids are our base. But they needed time. … We’re able to start reaping some of those benefits because now they are ready.”