UK’s Brad Calipari to redshirt this season. Here’s his plan after that.

Brad Calipari will redshirt this season with the intention of playing the next two Kentucky seasons as a graduate student, UK Coach John Calipari tweeted Monday.

The younger Calipari is on schedule to graduate next spring. He is majoring in Communications.

His son came to him about a month ago with the request to redshirt, the UK coach tweeted. “This will give (Brad) basketball eligibility during those two years of grad school,” the elder Calipari tweeted.

Brad Calipari will practice and travel with the UK team this season, his father tweeted. But he will not play in games.

Brad Calipari is at least the fourth son to play for his father at Kentucky. He follows Herky Rupp (Adolph Rupp), Sean Sutton (Eddie Sutton) and Saul Smith (Tubby Smith).

As Al McGuire famously said, a father-son combination works best when the son is either clearly the best player on the team or a player who makes only cameo appearances. Brad Calipari has fit the latter category. In his first two seasons, he played a total of 73 minutes. He made three of 20 shots and three of 19 three-point attempts.

Fans have encouraged him to shoot almost every time he touched the ball. But Brad Calipari has always looked to fit inside a team concept.

During the Blue-White Game and two exhibitions this preseason, he played a total of 24 minutes. He made one of five shots (zero of four from three-point range),

Brad Calipari came to UK, in part, to prepare for a coaching career. Early this preseason, he said that remained his goal.

“I want to play first,” he said. “Somewhere overseas or whatever it is.”

He said he had improved as a player in the first two seasons. “I’m not going to be able to out-run these guys or out-jump these guys,” he said. “But I’ll have to be able to outlast them.”

A two-time SEC Academic Honor Roll member, Brad Calipari has made two summer trips to Europe with a team sponsored by the Global Sports Academy. He averaged 14.3 points and 6.5 assists in 2017 and 13.2 points and 7.0 assists in 2018.