By Mike Clark
A year after reaching its ultimate goal of a Class 4A state championship last season, Kenwood girls basketball is back with an interesting mix of old and new faces.
Four starters graduated from the 31-3 team that beat Fremd in the title game last year, giving coach Andre Lewis his 300th win with the Broncos and 500th overall.
The returning starter is an important one: senior guard and UIC recruit Danielle Brooks, who scored a game-high 24 points against Fremd.
Two other guards are back who were in rotation last season: senior Amillya Henigan and junior Makayla Triplett.
The reinforcements include a pair of senior wings who have transferred in: Darryelle Smith from Fenwick and Valencia Miller from Hammond (Ind.) Central.
And three more players to watch have been freshmen: 5-9 guard/forward Makenzie Benamon, 6-1 forward Janiah Daniel and 6-0 forward Zaire Lester.
While the number of new pieces make for some uncertainty, one thing’s for sure — this is Brooks’ team.
She embraces that role.
“It feels good,” she said at Kenwood’s media day. “Even though we have a new team, we’re trying to get back together, get (the) team bonding. Myself, I’m trying to be more of a leader than last year.”
“After a little prodding early, she has become much more vocal,” Lewis said. “She’s accepted responsibility for the team and so I’m excited about what we can become this year.”
At the same time, Brooks has been working on improving her game — which already was at a high level. She averaged 14.3 points, 3.3 assists and 2.1 steals as a junior while hitting a team-best 80 3-pointers.
“I was staying in the gym, always working on my defense,” she said. “… (I’ll) still shoot 3s, but shoot more.”
Signing with UIC just before the season gave Brooks one less thing to deal with during her last prep season.
“Coach (Ashleen) Bracey, I’ve known her a long time, a very long time,” Brooks said. “I always wanted to go to that school because I know that school will make me better.”
Now she can focus on helping the transfers and freshmen get comfortable in a new system.
The first-year players have been relied on to provide an inside presence.
“Our bigs, they’re our freshmen,” Brooks said. “They’re going to have to start off strong and very confident.”
Smith is used to playing high-level competition after averaging 7.8 points and 6.8 rebounds a game for Fenwick last season.
She’s felt at home at Kenwood since arriving at her new school.
“It’s great,” she said. “Honestly, I’m learning new lessons as I’m taking on challenges, trying to fit myself into the team … I feel like it’s going better, it’s a community, it’s a family, we’re a sisterhood.”
Like Brooks, Smith has been looking to be a force on the perimeter.
“I totally feel like I’ve improved on jump shots, taking shots outside of the 3-point line because last year I was kind of a post player,” Smith said. “So coach Dre (Lewis) is instilling in me, like, ‘You’re OK, your confidence is good. You can take that mid-range’ or ‘You can take that 3-point shot.'”
Lewis likes what he’s seen of Smith.
“She’s actually brought in very quickly to the hard work,” Lewis said. “I’ve been impressed with her effort, her ability to take being coached hard. She is actually a better offensive player than I thought. She’s got a lot of tools that I think we’ll be able to utilize within how we like to play.”
Lewis is looking forward to seeing how all the pieces come together for the Broncos as the conference season hits the home stretch and the team prepares for the city, and then state, playoffs.
“I think we have talent,” he said. “And the real question is, how do you replace all the leadership and all the camaraderie and all of the accepting of certain roles? And so that’s going to be the interesting part this year. But from a talent perspective, we have enough talent to be successful.”
