Wednesday, March 15, 2023

There's a New Sheriff in Town

I'm in California for spring break, so this commentary is delayed more than I would have liked, given its magnitude. The UT Arlington Athletic Department is in the process of finalizing the hiring of current University of Kentucky assistant coach K.T. Turner as the 11th head coach in the program's University history (10th if you remove interim coaches).

Social media is showing a lot of excitement over the hire. In his history, Turner hasn't stayed anywhere very long (more on that later in the post). He was with the Wildcat program for one season. In 2021/2022, Turner was an assistant with the Oklahoma Sooners men's team. He was there for only one season as he was an assistant with the University of Texas-Austin for the 2020/21 basketball season. 

The longest stretch of his career at one place was a seven-season stop as an assistant at SMU. Interestingly, he was an assistant with the Mustangs under two different head coaches from 2013/14 to 19/20. That period was an anomaly as he was at Wichita State for one season, 2012/13, the year prior. In what is more the trend than an outlier, He was an assistant at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi for just one season in 2011/12.