LEXINGTON – Kentucky basketball has already targeted Baylor’s Scott Drew as its new coach. While Drew remains in Waco, Texas, the Wildcats would still have a former Baylor coach on the bench next season.
New UK coach Mark Pope hired Alvin Brooks III as assistant on Wednesday, according to several reports. Brooks, associate head coach under Drew, spent the last eight seasons on the Bears staff. Brooks joins Cody Fueger (one of Pope’s assistants at BYU) and Jason Hart (a Syracuse star and former coach of NBA G League team Ignite) on Kentucky’s freshman team.
That’s not Brooks’ only connection to the Wildcats, either. His father, Alvin Brooks, was director of basketball operations at UK during former coach Billy Gillispie’s two-season tenure in Lexington; the elder Brooks is now Lamar’s head coach.
The young Brooks is considered an excellent recruiter. According to 247Sports’ all-time recruiting rankings, which date back to 2000, Brooks is cited as the primary recruiter for three of the Bears’ top five signees: No. 1 VJ Edgecombe, No. 4 Keyonte George and No. 5 Ja. ‘Kobe Walter. Edgecombe, the No. 4 overall player in the 2024 class in the 247Sports Composite rankings, chose Baylor over Kentucky and fellow recruiting center Duke.
Edgecombe, George and Walter were all consensus five-star prospects in their respective classes.
But the Bears’ success with Brooks isn’t limited to recruiting.
During his tenure on the staff, Baylor went 194-72 overall (104-39 in the Big 12), including a 12-5 mark in the NCAA Tournament. Brooks was part of the Bears’ 2021 national championship team. That national title was the culmination of two seasons of excellence: Baylor combined to go 54-6 (.900) during the 2019-20 seasons and 2020-21, going 17-3 (.850) against ranked opponents. During that span, the Bears ranked in the top five of the Associated Press poll for 29 consecutive weeks.
A Houston native, Brooks joined Baylor after a four-season stint (2012-13 to 2015-16) as an assistant to Bruce Weber at Kansas State.
Brooks also served as an assistant coach at Division I schools Sam Houston State (2010-12) and Bradley (2007-10). Before Bradley, he worked at Midland College – a college in Midland, Texas – during the 2006-07 season. That season, working for Grant McCasland (now head coach at Texas Tech), Brooks helped the Chaparrals win a junior college national championship. He also won a junior college national championship at Arkansas-Fort Smith in 2006; he spent two seasons (2004-06) as an assistant with the Lions.
Brooks played at Midland College during the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons before transferring to Idaho State.
Contact Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at [email protected] and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
