Get To Know The New Guy, KT Turner

John Calipari’s search for a new assistant stayed pretty quiet throughout the entire process until reports surfaced that he found his guy to replace Jai Lucas.

Though it hasn’t been officially announced by Kentucky Basketball, today we learned that guy is KT Turner, a journeyman college assistant last seen in Norman, Oklahoma.

Here are the fast facts as Turner moves to a new coaching staff for the third time in three years.

Turner is a three-time associate head coach

At 44 years old, Turner has already worn the badge of associate head coach at SMU, Texas, and, most recently, Oklahoma, where he is currently packing up his belongings for a move to Lexington. Turner spent one year on the Sooners’ bench as associate head coach to first-year head coach Porter Moser in the 2021-22 season. Turner was Moser’s first hire last spring, pulling him away from Texas during the changing of the guard from Shaka Smart to Chris Beard in Austin.

Prior to one-year stints at Texas and Oklahoma, Turner spent seven seasons on SMU’s bench where he was the associate head coach for the last four of those years.

He replaces Jai Lucas… again

When John Calipari hired Lucas away from Texas in 2020, Shaka Smart brought in Turner from SMU to fill two openings on the Texas bench, including Lucas’ spot. Two years later, Lucas jumped from Kentucky to Duke and Turner is again the replacement in the seat Lucas leaves behind.

Not just a coincidence, Lucas and Turner are proven recruiters in the Texas area and John Calipari believes it’s a recruiting region of high priority for the Wildcats.

He has the Larry Brown stamp of approval

Calipari’s mentor hired Turner to be an assistant at SMU in the summer of 2013 and Turner remained on the Mustangs’ bench through Brown’s resignation in 2016, plus another four years after the coaching change to Tim Jankovich, Turner’s old college coach. More on him in a moment.

SMU climbed as high as eighth in the AP poll during Turner’s time as associate head coach under Jankovich, and Turner left SMU with two regular season championship rings and two conference tournament rings in the American Athletic Conference.

When Turner left Dallas, he spoke highly of Brown as a mentor, which likely stood out to Calipari on his resume. Brown also played a helpful role in Turner’s move up to Texas with a ringing endorsement of his former assistant. It’s fair to assume Calipari heard that same ringing endorsement.

He coached under Gregg Marshall at Wichita State for one year too

But not that year, thankfully.

KT Turner was a part of Wichita State’s 2013 Final Four run in his only season with Marshall and the Shockers.

Turner played JUCO and NAIA college ball

Before he got into coaching, Turner shined at Hutchinson (Kansas) Community College as a two-time all-conference guard at the JUCO level for Tim Jankovich, who later became his boss. After the two JUCO years, Turner transferred to UT-Arlington for his junior season in 2000-01, then transferred to NAIA-level Oklahoma City University for his senior season.

OCU won the Sooner Athletic Conference’s regular season and conference tournament championships in Turner’s senior year.

He almost coached against John Calipari and Kentucky in Rupp Arena

During Turner’s one year at Texas, the COVID season, head coach Shaka Smart missed a couple of games for a positive test and Turner was his fill-in on the Longhorns’ sideline. One of those games was almost the Big 12/SEC Challenge against Kentucky in Lexington, but that matchup was canceled the day before it was scheduled to be played over COVID concerns on Kentucky’s end.

Had the game gone on as planned, Turner would’ve been in a head coaching battle against John Calipari in Rupp Arena. Now he’ll be working for him there.

The ‘K’ is for Kenneth

… in case you’re wondering.

And he’s married with three children.

We’ll learn more when he gets here

The Kentucky Basketball team reports to campus this week. I assume we’ll hear from Turner in his new role once he gets familiar with his new digs.

Until then, welcome.