Kenny Brooks: ‘The beauty of this part here is that you can say survive and advance’

Kentucky’s win over Liberty may have given Big Blue Nation a few extra gray hairs, but objectively, that was a really, really fun and good basketball game. It truly epitomized what March Madness is all about.

The 4-seed Cats came into the game a heavy favorite over the Flames, but of course, the ball is tipped for a reason, and things don’t always go as expected. Should Kentucky have won by 20 (especially after holding a 67-50 lead in the fourth quarter)? Probably. However, whether it be by 1 or 100, a win is a win, and in March, getting wins is all that matters.

Following Kentucky’s thriller against Liberty, Kenny Brooks talked about how being able to get the win — no matter how big or small, pretty or ugly — is the most important thing to take away from a game like the one on Friday.

“The beauty of this part here is you can say survive and advance,” Brooks said. “That’s what we did today. I thought we had a really good showing in the opening half. Played pretty good the third quarter.”

Of course, it is warranted to think that Kentucky played really bad down the stretch, but Brooks says that a lot of it was just Liberty making the adjustments they needed to make in order to be competitive.

“But I think that’s where you need to give credit to Liberty,” Brooks mentioned. “They did a fantastic job exploiting us in certain areas. They did a really good job. We have to be much better in the post. We elected to go with a one-on-one approach and didn’t win a lot of those battles, and they took advantage of it.”

Most people would look at Kentucky vs. Liberty, 4-seed vs. 13-seed, and think that Kentucky should win handily, but Brooks knew that Carey Green’s squad would put up a valiant fight based on how his previous matchups with Liberty have gone.

“We knew it was going to be a tough battle,” The Sporting News National Coach of the Year noted. “Carey’s teams play hard and very talented and unorthodox. Something we haven’t seen in a while because nobody plays like that in the SEC. So, it took us a little while to adjust, but thank goodness for Georgia [Amoore]’s performance. Her and Dazia [Lawrence] really carried us from a mental standpoint, and we have to have others step up if we want to continue on.”

Kentucky will be tested yet again, this time against 5-seed Kansas State on Sunday. If Kentucky wants to make it to the Sweet 16 out in Spokane, they’ll just have to be able to survive and advance.

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