Mark Pope adds Baylor assistant Alvin Brooks III to Kentucky basketball staff, per reports
LEXINGTON — Kentucky basketball once targeted Baylor's Scott Drew as its new coach. While Drew remains in Waco, Texas, the Wildcats reportedly still will have a former Baylor coach on the bench next season.
New UK coach Mark Pope hired Alvin Brooks III as an assistant Wednesday, according to multiplereports. Brooks, an associate head coach under Drew, spent the past 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 the NBA G League Ignite squad) on Kentucky's first-year staff.
That's not Brooks' only connection with the Wildcats, either. His father, Alvin Brooks, was UK's director of basketball operations during former coach Billy Gillispie's two-season tenure in Lexington; the elder Brooks now is the head coach at Lamar.
The younger Brooks is regarded as an ace recruiter. Per 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 ever: 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, picked Baylor over Kentucky and fellow recruiting powerhouse Duke.
Edgecombe, George and Walter all were consensus five-star prospects in their respective classes.
But the Bears' success with Brooks isn't limited to the recruiting trail.
During his time on the staff, Baylor has gone 194-72 overall (104-39 in Big 12 play), 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) over the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, with a 17-3 mark (.850) against ranked foes. In that stretch, the Bears ranked among the top five in the Associated Press poll for 29 consecutive weeks.
A Houston native, Brooks joined Baylor after a four-season stint (2012-13 through 2015-16) as an assistant for Bruce Weber at Kansas State.
Brooks also has served as an assistant coach at Division I schools Sam Houston State (2010-12) and Bradley (2007-10). Prior to Bradley, he worked at Midland College — a junior college in Midland, Texas — during the 2006-07 season. That season, working for Grant McCasland (now the 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.
Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Mark Pope Kentucky basketball staff to reportedly include Alvin Brooks
