Kentucky adds longtime assistant Turner to Wildcats staff

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky has hired longtime basketball assistant coach K.T. Turner to round out head coach John Calipari’s staff.

Turner fills the opening created when Jai Lucas left to become an assistant at Duke. The nearly 20-year veteran spent last season as associate head coach at Oklahoma under Porter Moser and helped the Sooners reach the NIT second round. He worked the previous season in a similar role at Texas after seven seasons at SMU.

Calipari said in a release that Turner would be the guy he’d call on for the opening and added, “He’s an established coach and someone who has a passion for development. … K.T. has done an excellent job of recruiting Texas, which has always been good to us, and has a terrific ability to connect with young people.”

Turner’s coaching background includes stops at Wichita State, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and Hutchinson (Kansas) Community College, where he was an all-conference player before finishing at Oklahoma City University. The Cincinnati native played professionally for three seasons in Italy before becoming a coach.

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