Podcast: Brooks coach Kenya Jones on winning 2024-25 Class B championship, Alex Wilkins’ impact

Kenya Jones won his first Class B championship as head coach of Brooks last month. (Brooks Athletics)

More than a month removed from winning the Class B championship, Brooks head coach Kenya Jones is still on cloud nine.

On a thrilling NEPSAC championship Sunday on March 9, Brooks wrote a storybook ending to its season. Star point guard Alex Wilkins’ go-ahead, game-winning 3-pointer with three seconds remaining lifted Brooks to the Class B title — Jones’ first as head coach and the program’s first since 2018 — as they squashed years of heartache against rival Rivers in the process.

The championship stamped a rollercoaster season for Brooks, which started with a 3-8 record — in large part due to the absence of Wilkins, who missed the first month with a wrist injury — and even entered the postseason with a losing record at 12-13. But as the No. 6 seed in Class B, Brooks fought through the adversity, winning all three of its playoff games in comeback fashion to claim the championship.

Jones joined Steve Hewitt and Ethan Fuller on the latest HoopWise podcast to recap Brooks’ championship season. The discussion includes the emotion of the title win, Wilkins’ impact on the program and much more.

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Highlights

Has it sunk in yet that you’re a Class B champion?

Kenya: “It goes through ups and downs, to be honest. I mean, even yesterday, it was probably 7 o’clock at night and I was like, ‘Did that really just happen?’ It’s been a month, but it’s felt longer and then shorter. It’s all the emotions, and I think it’s just because how unexpectedly it happened, right? It wasn’t like we were the No. 1 seed and that was supposed to happen. It just kind of came out of nowhere. It’s been a really interesting month. I tried to get away from it. I planned a trip to Vegas like three days after the championship game — win or loss, I was just going with friends — and I’m there and I won and I’m in my own zone and one of my friends was like, ‘If you’re just going to stand there and celebrate by yourself, I’m leaving.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know what you want me to do. This came out of nowhere.’ So yeah, it’s been a cool and interesting month and I’m trying to balance embracing it all but being humbled at the same time but being happy that it happened. It’s a cool experience.”

What is it like to coach a kid like Alex Wilkins?

Kenya: “His leadership is above everything else. His leadership is better than his play, and that is crazy to have. He is a true, true leader. Alex is a true point guard, he’s not a combo guard, he’s a point guard. I have had to make him shoot those shots, just because we didn’t have anybody else to be able to take and make those. But he wants to pass the ball, he wants to get people involved. Even last year, he was making the correct passes but to players … but they weren’t expecting, the ball’s hitting them on the chin or out of their hands, and I’m like, ‘Lex, that’s the right pass.’ But then like you have to take those shots. … Now, coming off the flip side, he was taking ill-advised shots and I was like all right, now we’re going the other way too much, but he found that balance. He seeks information, he wants to get better, he wants to figure out where his teammates want the ball.”

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