Inside HOKIE SPORTS | Vol. 12 No. 2 | October 2019

28 Inside Hokie Sports WWW.hokiegear.com season preview WOmen’s basketball polished post player? It went down to the wire, but we were very fortunate.” Brooks also was fortunate to land Kitley, a 6-5 center out of Greensboro, North Carolina who teamed with another Tech freshman, guard Cayla King, to lead their high school team to two state titles. Both scored more than 1,000 points in their careers, and Brooks called Kitley the most polished post player whom he ever has recruited. In addition, Brooks gets the services of 6-4 Alex Obouh Fegue, a junior college All-American who averaged 16.2 points and 9.8 rebounds per game for Eastern Florida State in 2017-18. She enrolled at Tech in December, but took a redshirt season and now has two years of eligibility remaining. “Just adding depth, that’s something that you need in this league,” Brooks said of his recent recruiting emphasis on size. “We had one of the better post players in the league last year in Regan, but she got worn down. When other teams were bringing in their second and third waves, she was still going against them, and then comes the first wave back in after they’ve rested. It was just a disadvantage.” The group may get a talent boost with the addition of Asiah Jones, a transfer from Southern Cal. The 6-3 Jones averaged 4.7 points and 3.2 rebounds per game for the Trojans as a redshirt sophomore last season (she missed a season because of an injury). Jones applied to the NCAA for a waiver to become eligible immediately and had not heard back as of Oct. 15. Brooks likes her athleticism and hopes to get her services this season. “She’s, by far, our most athletic post player,” he said. “If we’re fortunate to get Asiah eligible, I’ll be like a kid in a candy store because I’ll have options.” Overall, Brooks expects this team to be much different than last year’s group. The Hokies may not shoot the 3 as well after a season in which they smashed the school record with 324, but they may be better defensively and at rebounding, and they hope to take better care of the ball. They do need to find a “go-to” player at the end of games. Mostly, though, they need to see if all these new pieces mesh well enough to win games. “Obviously, we have to stay healthy, and kids have to generate some chemistry amongst each other, but it’s really going to be a work in progress,” Brooks said. “Last year, you knew where the ball was going to go to get certain looks, and you knew what you were going to get from certain people … We are new. We’re relatively young in some areas, but … we have kids who are capable. We just have to put it all together and see what we can do.” Brooks certainly has the Hokies trending in the right direction. Prior to his arrival, Tech had won 20 games in a season just once since joining the ACC. Yet it has won at least 20 in each of Brooks’ three seasons and 65 overall. Obviously, he wants his teams to be more of a force in ACC play, and he wants to get to the NCAA Tournament, but he feels that it’s only a matter of time before those things happen—not if, but when. And in a perfect world, this season. “Now I feel like we’re really starting to build the program, build it in the mold that we want,” he said. “The first three years, if you look back on them, we had some disappointments, but in the grand scheme of things, we won 65 games … I’m watching people take over Power 5 programs, and they’re winning nine games in their first year and maybe 12 in their second. It’s just a matter of you have to build it. “So we’re obviously going in the right direction, and we’re excited about it. In one or two games [last season], if the ball had bounced a different way, we would have reached our ultimate goal, but I really like where we’re going with the program.” FACES NEW Continued from page 27