Hopkins on His Kentucky Players
UW coach Mike Hopkins discusses his pair of former Kentucky starters.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00 >> I was sitting in the gym last week and Wheeler and Brooks walked by me and
00:04 I said Kentucky West.
00:06 They didn't laugh, but I still think you having two Kentucky starters,
00:10 proven starters at that place, a blue blood place, is a huge thing for
00:14 your program.
00:14 And I think guys that are picking all Pac-9 preseason polls,
00:19 I'm thinking, do you not know they have two Kentucky starters?
00:22 Could you talk a little bit about that?
00:25 >> You know what, Savere, when he was originally at Georgia,
00:30 literally led the SEC in major conference and assists.
00:35 And then went to Kentucky and they were number one seed or
00:38 two seed I think in the NCAA tournament.
00:40 But he's a true point guard, elite point guard, yeah, or talent.
00:45 I mean, they're both all Americans coming out of high school.
00:48 The thing that I think is not just Kentucky, he came here last year and
00:54 he averaged 17 a game.
00:55 Where at Kentucky he averaged 10 and kept getting better.
00:58 And I've said this to numerous people since our first year,
01:04 going into year two, that year we brought back Noel, all freshmen.
01:09 We brought Noah Dickerson, all league, and Matisse Theibel, all defense.
01:16 Since then we lost Isaiah, you lost Jayden McDaniels,
01:20 then you lost Terrell Brown and Emmett Matthews.
01:22 We lost major key players to a team.
01:26 And to be able to return Keon Brooks, who was an all league player,
01:29 return Braxton Mia, who was an all defensive player in the league.
01:33 Return Corrin Johnson, who was right on the borderline of being all rookie.
01:37 Returning Frank Kepnon, who if Braxton was all league,
01:41 is an all league caliber defensive player.
01:43 That I think is a huge part.
01:45 And then putting the pieces together, like you say, Savere Wheeler,
01:48 who's an elite point guard, and Pauly Moses, the shooting.
01:51 Yeah, across the board, positionally,
01:57 I think we're as good as in the upper echelon of our league for sure.
02:02 >> Did Brooks have much input in getting Wheeler to come?
02:06 >> You know what, in recruiting, it's so funny.
02:07 People say, how'd you get Keon Brooks?
02:09 Well, he was teammates with Isaiah Stewart.
02:11 And a lot of times when you're in the portal,
02:13 it comes back to relationships and trust in a short period of time.
02:16 And then when Savere was in the portal, Keon Brooks had played with him.
02:21 They talked about his experience here and him coming back.
02:25 And when Keon Minifield left, the need to have an elite point guard.
02:30 And from player development with Coach Conroy to one of his favorite players of
02:35 all time was Isaiah Thomas.
02:36 And Isaiah was practicing with us last week.
02:38 So there's so many great parts of the history here and
02:43 wanting to be a part of it and wanting to win big.
02:45 And I think a lot still to come.
02:49 We still have a long way to go, but they've been tremendous for sure.
02:53 [BLANK_AUDIO]