New Kentucky assistant on outlook for next season: ‘The sky’s the limit’
As first impressions go, Kentucky’s basketball team for 2022-23 has made a great one with new assistant coach K.T. Turner.
“I think the sky’s the limit,” he said at an introductory news conference Wednesday. “I think we have a chance. I do.”
Presumably, the chance he was referring to was winning the 2023 NCAA Tournament.
“I think we have a lot of great pieces,” Turner said. “We have a lot of guys who work. And they play together.”
Of course, one of those pieces is Oscar Tshiebwe, the consensus national player of the year last season. Tshiebwe led all Division I players with averages of 15.1 rebounds and 5.26 offensive rebounds per game. His 28 double-doubles ranked second.
“It was unreal,” Tanner said of Tshiebwe’s performance. “Like, he got a rebound today, and I’m, like, whoa. . . . I met him in person. I saw his size. I see why now.”
Name game
Turner goes by the name K.T. Turner. But his given name is Kenneth James Turner.
Turner recalled being a high school player and seeing his name as K.T. in newspaper stories.
“I was, like, that’s not my name!” he said. “I couldn’t get away from it. It stuck with me forever.
“When I became a coach, I tried to do it again. All right, I can reinvent my name. ‘Ken Turner’ I put on my voice mail and everything.”
An assistant coach told him he couldn’t change his name.
When asked what his wife, Cassaundra, and family members called him, Turner said, “Everybody calls me K.T.”
Step down?
Turner was the associate head coach at Oklahoma last season. Was becoming an assistant coach at Kentucky a step down in his career path?
“I don’t have an ego like that,” he said.
Turner added that he had been an associate head coach at Texas and SMU earlier in his career.
“I know what I can do on the court and how I can help the program out,” he said.
Larry Brown
Turner and John Calipari share a link to Hall of Fame Coach Larry Brown. The former was an assistant on Brown’s staff at SMU. The latter began his coaching career on Brown’s staff at Kansas.
“Coach Brown and Cal are really tight,” Turner said. “I’ve heard a lot of stories about (Calipari) before I got here through (Brown).”
When asked to share some of those stories, Turner said, “Some of them I might not be able to tell. . . . Coach Brown has unbelievable respect for Cal. I’m serious. He talked about him all the time.”
Following Jai Lucas
Kentucky isn’t the first time Turner followed Jai Lucas on a college coaching staff. Earlier in their careers, he did the same at Texas.
“We’re actually good friends,” Turner said. “We talk. It’s just ironic that it happened like that. Nothing that we tried to do intentionally.”
Lexington ‘welcoming’
When asked how he felt about Lexington at this early stage, Turner said, “the people, they’re so welcoming. I told my wife, she’s going to love it when she gets here. Everywhere we go, people are welcoming.”
With that, Turner told reporters, “you guys have some really good food spots. It’s more than what I thought.”
Speaking of food, Turner was asked if he had eaten a Hot Brown.
“Hot Brown? I haven’t had that yet,” he said.
Turner had tasted bourbon.
“Once,” he said. “Good. Really good.”
‘First time’
When asked if as an assistant coach he had previously experienced being the subject of a news conference that had multiple television cameras and reporters, Turner said. “Never. Never.
“This is big time right here. Never have. This is the first time I’ve ever seen it.”
