K.T. Turner joins Kentucky’s staff. What does it mean for UK recruiting efforts in Texas?
Over the past several years, no state has produced more top-tier basketball talent than Texas, which has sent a bevy of McDonald’s All-Americans and other highly touted recruits to major college programs.
And during that time, few, if any, college coaches have been as well-regarded as K.T. Turner, who has spent more than a decade recruiting the area and was officially announced Wednesday afternoon as the next assistant coach at the University of Kentucky.
“I think that’s a match made in heaven, for what they wanted with that spot being open,” said 247Sports analyst Brandon Jenkins, who specializes in Texas recruiting. “If you ask any of the top AAU programs in Texas — you bring up K.T. Turner’s name, and I guarantee you the response would be, ‘That is my guy.’”
Mission accepted.
The Herald-Leader reached out to several of the top AAU team directors and coaches in Texas before UK’s hire of K.T. Turner was made official Wednesday afternoon, and the response was overwhelmingly positive.
“Oh, man. Coach has been recruiting down here in Texas for as long as I can remember,” said Brandon Espinosa of Nike-affiliated Drive Nation. “... I think K.T. is a home-run hire. He’s got the relationships, he’s got the track record, he’s got the resume, he’s got the personality. He’s done it everywhere he’s been.”
Vonzell Thomas, who runs Southern Assault on the Adidas circuit, has known Turner since his days as a junior-college coach, before he spent seven seasons at SMU, and then one season each at Texas and Oklahoma.
“One thing he’s always been is very consistent,” Thomas said. “He has a very good relationship with everyone. There’s not a single (AAU) coach or high school coach here that would say anything bad about K.T. So, if you’re a college coach and you’re like that, it really pushes coaches to make sure they’re helping him at the same time.”
Jeff Webster leads the ProSkills program on the Nike circuit. He’s incredibly familiar with Kentucky’s program and John Calipari’s approach, serving as a mentor to former UK star Julius Randle through his high school career and spending plenty of time in Lexington as a result.
“I think it’s a great fit,” Webster said. “I know K.T. well, and I know he’ll do a great job.”
It’s a rare thing in the cutthroat world of college basketball to find anyone whose good fortune is met with universal and genuine happiness. But that certainly seems to be the case with Turner, who has somehow managed to navigate the often-prickly recruiting trail making nothing but friends and allies along the way.
Thomas attributes that to Turner’s ability to build and maintain meaningful relationships.
Last year, Thomas’ star player was Keyonte George, who has long been considered one of the top five players in the 2022 class. Naturally, Thomas’ phone stayed buzzing as a result.
A prospect like George, who will play at Baylor this season, doesn’t come through the Southern Assault program every year. The team always has talented players, but, in some cycles, there might not be any who project to play at the very highest levels of college basketball.
Those circumstances serve to separate the real relationships from the advantageous ones.
“One pet peeve of mine is that if I don’t have a kid good enough for your program and I’m not hearing from you at all, and then all the sudden when I do have one and you want to pop up and call me every day,” Thomas said. “I’m not going to go out of my way for you. That’s not a genuine relationship.
“That’s the difference with him. Even if you don’t have a kid that’s ‘Kentucky good,’ you’re still hearing from K.T. It’s not just about him recruiting your players. It’s a relationship.”
A basketball lifer
Matt Suther has known Turner since, he estimates, the fifth grade. The two grew up together and have remained close friends even as their lives have sent them in different directions geographically, with the game of basketball serving as a professional path for both.
Suther, who played in college for the University of Missouri-Kansas City, formed the KC-based Mokan Elite basketball program nearly two decades ago, and it has evolved into one of the powerhouses on the Nike grassroots circuit.
He noted that Turner’s father, the late Ken Turner, was a longtime college basketball coach, working at Ohio State, Kansas State and Cincinnati, among other major programs. Suther said Kentucky’s new assistant coach obviously learned much about the game — and how to treat people within it — from watching his dad. And, like others who have been around K.T. Turner, his longtime friend pushed back on any narrative that he’s made it this far due solely to his recruiting chops.
“So many times, I think guys get pigeon-holed into being looked at as just recruiters,” Suther said. “He grew up in the game, so he’s definitely not just that.
“He grew up always knowing he wanted to be a coach. And he grinded it out at all levels.”
Turner graduated from Oklahoma City University in 2003, played three seasons of professional ball overseas, and then began his coaching career by spending six seasons in the junior college ranks. He eventually helped lead Wichita State to a Final Four appearance in 2013 and then made it to SMU, where he spent seven seasons as an assistant — the first three under legendary coach Larry Brown, a longtime Calipari confidante who has advocated for Turner to get a spot on the Kentucky staff in the past.
At SMU, he recruited some high-quality players and also helped develop them on the court. Two of the Mustangs’ stars in that era — Shake Milton and Semi Ojeleye — came from the Mokan Elite program and ended up as NBA Draft picks.
Turner spent one season at Texas, where he quickly earned the trust of head coach Shaka Smart and the Longhorns’ players. He replaced Jai Lucas on that staff — coincidentally, he’ll again be replacing Lucas, who left Kentucky for Duke earlier this spring — and actually took over the program when Smart was briefly sidelined due to COVID-19.
“The one thing about people who carry themselves the way K.T. does — they know how to lay back, see how things operate and find their niche when the time comes,” Jenkins said. “He excels at making other people feel comfortable. … During his time at SMU, during his time at Texas, he was always known for being the guy that players could always relate to — recruits, players on the team — he’s that second voice that gives players the extra confidence they need to make it through tough situations.”
Instead of following Smart to Marquette after that season, Turner decided to stay closer to his longtime home, joining new head coach Porter Moser as the top assistant at Oklahoma.
Up next is the move to Kentucky.
Recruiting expectations
Yes, Turner is expected to be relied on plenty as a player developer at Kentucky, but recruiting will still be a major point of emphasis for the new coach at a program that sees constant roster turnover under Calipari.
And that’s where all of the relationship-building of the past two decades should come in handy.
Kentucky has hit Texas heavily in the Calipari era, adding recruits such as De’Aaron Fox, Tyrese Maxey, PJ Washington, Jarred Vanderbilt and Daimion Collins from the state over the past few years.
Cason Wallace is also from Texas, and he’s the top-ranked recruit in Kentucky’s incoming freshman class. Wallace comes from the same Nike ProSkills program run by Webster, who finds himself in an interesting spot. On one hand, Webster mentored Julius Randle, so he has a positive first-hand view of Kentucky basketball. On the other, he’s an alumnus of Oklahoma, the program that is losing Turner to the Wildcats.
“At the end of the day, I’m happy,” he said. “Because you guys have my kid, Cason, so I’m happy to get one of my guys with one of my guys. It’s a pivotal year for the program, and I think they reloaded well. Losing Jai Lucas, who I was close with also, I think K.T. comes in, does well and does his job. He’s going to do what he does.”
The common theme in talking with those who know Turner well is that it’ll make Kentucky even more attractive for these grassroots coaches.
Just because Suther and Turner are close friends doesn’t necessarily mean there’s going to be an automatic pipeline from Mokan-to-Kentucky moving forward. But the connection can’t hurt.
“The thing that’s nice is you know if it’s a right fit for a kid to go somewhere with somebody that you have a relationship with — you know that they’re going to do everything in their power to ensure that the kid has success,” Suther said. “So there’s a level of comfortability there, for sure.”
Mokan has produced top prospects such as Trae Young, Michael Porter Jr. and Kennedy Chandler in recent years, as well as sending Willie Cauley-Stein to Kentucky a decade ago.
The state of Texas has been responsible for even more elite talent in that time, and that will no doubt continue.
The No. 1 player in Texas for 2023 is Ron Holland, who will arrive in Lexington for an official visit Monday.
Holland plays for the Drive Nation program headed by Espinosa, who was effusive in his praise for Turner, someone the grassroots coach says others just getting started in the profession already look up to as a role model.
“He’s a good dude. A really good dude,” Espinosa said. “He works really hard to build relationships. Genuine relationships. When you’re in recruiting, that’s what it’s about. You’re not just going to call or text a kid, call or text a parent — you have to actually build relationships to get players.
“I’m happy for him. We wish him the best. And I can’t wait for him to start calling us and recruiting our guys for Kentucky.”
