By LARRY VAUGHT
New Kentucky basketball assistant coach Jai Lucas said he couldn’t do anything but shake his head and laugh when UK was paired against Texas in the Big 12/SEC Challenge.
Lucas was an assistant coach at Texas before joining John Calipari’s staff recently.
“I’ll be excited to see everybody down there. I still keep in contact with a lot of the players and the staff and stuff like that,” Lucas said. “I was telling some of the people here, they have a really good team. They have a Final Four team as well. I think we do have a good team here too, so I think it will be a really good game.”
Texas is known nationally as a football school but like Kentucky is known as a basketball school.
“Nothing against Texas, but football is king down there in every aspect. Just being up here in Kentucky and interacting with people you understand how big basketball is. Not just the University of Kentucky, but even high school basketball. How they talk about it and know all the players and stuff like that,” Lucas said.
“So it’s very refreshing when you’re a basketball person to be at a basketball place.”
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