By LARRY VAUGHT
How hard is it for a parent of a University of Kentucky basketball player to watch his or her son play?
“It can be kind of tough,” said Keion Brooks Sr., the father of UK junior forward Keion Brooks. “You look at it through the eyes of a parent but also as a guy who helped your son get to where he is at. What can I do to help him? I try to take notes to go over with him after the game.
“On the father side of it, you see the success not being there and you know all the hard work he put in and the team puts in playing their butts off. That’s tough on a parent. You never want to see your kid not being successful.”
Brooks Sr. said his son understands Kentucky is the “biggest game for everybody” on the schedule and often those teams will play at a higher than normal level against UK.
“You have to be able to take things away from all those games. Any small details or plays that change the tide of a game, you have to focus on what happened and how to make sure you are ready for that in future games,” he said.
Brooks Jr. is averaging 11.2 points and 4.6 rebounds per game this year while shooting 49.4 percent from the field. His best game was in the win at Kansas when he had 27 points and eight rebounds. However, good or bad, the UK junior seldom changes his expression on the court.
“That is him. I would like to see more emotion out of him,” Brooks Sr. said. “It is a good trait to have to stay in the moment and not get too high or too low. He has been that way since he was a little kid and he’s not going to change.”