K.T. Turner to UT Arlington is official

UPDATE

It’s official. Kentucky Wildcats assistant coach K.T. Turner is the new head coach of UT Arlington.

Kentucky now has a vacancy on its coaching staff for the 2023-24 college basketball season.

With the NCAA Tournament now here, many schools have already seen their season come to an end, which means the coaching carousel is also getting started.

It didn’t take long for the Kentucky Wildcats to be part of it, as assistant coach K.T. Turner has reportedly landed a head-coaching gig.

Per Jon Rothstein, Turner is finalizing a deal to become the next head coach at UT Arlington. Kyle Tucker has also confirmed the news, adding that Turner will finish out the season with Kentucky.

Turner, who is wrapping up his first and only season in Lexington, joined the staff this past offseason after previously being the associate head coach of the Oklahoma Sooners. Prior to his one season at Oklahoma, Turner was associate head coach of the Texas Longhorns in 2020-21.

Coincidentally, this comes after news of Josh Pastner being fired as head coach at Georgia Tech. Almost immediately when that happened, Kyle Tucker floated the idea of Pastner ending up in Lexington next season.

Pastner previously worked with Calipari at Memphis and was set to join his initial staff in Lexington. However, Pastner was hired as Calipari’s replacement at Memphis. After several years there, Pastner made a move to Georgia Tech before being let go last week.

Now that there’s an open spot, is Pastner to Kentucky inevitable? Nothing is likely to be finalized until Kentucky’s season ends, but you have to think there will soon be talks between Calipari and Pastner about a move to Lexington if there haven’t already been.