John Calipari hires new assistant coach. Former boss calls him an ‘aggressive recruiter.’

More than three months after Kentucky’s basketball season ended, John Calipari has finally found a replacement for an opening on his UK staff.

Chuck Martin, who has more than two decades of college basketball coaching experience, will rejoin Calipari for the upcoming 2023-24 season. UK officially announced Martin’s hire Thursday afternoon, and the program confirmed that Martin will also have “recruiting coordinator” as part of his title.

“I’m extremely excited to be reunited with Coach Cal,” Martin said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to joining his tremendous staff and being a part of something greater than myself.”

Martin, who turned 54 years old last week, was on Calipari’s staff for two seasons at Memphis, including the 2007-08 campaign, which saw the Tigers — led by star freshman Derrick Rose — advance to the NCAA title game, where they were defeated by Kansas in overtime. After that season, Martin left Memphis to become the head coach at Marist.

In his only stint as a head coach, he went 41-118 with a 21-69 record in MAAC play. (The Red Foxes have not advanced to the NCAA Tournament since 1987.) Martin was let go after five seasons.

He then spent one season as a scout for the Oklahoma City Thunder before joining the Indiana staff under Tom Crean for three seasons. Martin then moved to South Carolina for five seasons under Frank Martin, who had been a recruiting adversary early in the two coaches’ careers.

Not long after Chuck Martin was hired as a South Carolina assistant, Frank Martin noted that — even before the COVID-19 pandemic and the NCAA’s “free transfer” policy change — recruiting had become a much more difficult landscape for college coaches to maneuver.

“Recruiting has just become very complicated, because you’ve gotta recruit your players even when they’re here for two or three years,” Frank Martin said in 2018. “You’ve gotta continue to recruit them. … But then recruiting the unknown, that’s getting complicated. Because you have to speak to so many people now to figure out who’s telling you the truth. Ninety-nine percent of the information you get is useless. But you’re always trying to find that one percent that really makes sense. And I think Chuck, that’s where his recruiting mind — I think he’s an aggressive recruiter, by trade.

“And here’s the best part about Chuck: (he’s) very humble.”

Chuck Martin spent last season as an assistant coach at Oregon. Earlier this year, Silver Waves Media named Martin as one of the 50 “most impactful” high-major assistant coaches in college basketball.

247Sports lists him as the primary recruiter for such prospects as 2023’s Kwame Evans Jr. (an Oregon signee and projected lottery pick in the 2024 NBA Draft), former Indiana players Thomas Bryant and OG Anunoby (both NBA Draft picks) and former South Carolina guard A.J. Lawson, who is also in the NBA.

Martin will take the spot at Kentucky previously occupied by K.T. Turner, who left Lexington in March after one season to become the new head coach at UT Arlington.

While UK has not yet revealed the exact structure of the 2023-24 coaching staff, Martin is expected to join Orlando Antigua and Chin Coleman as the Wildcats’ three assistants who will also be responsible for off-campus recruiting duties.

Longtime NBA assistant coach John Welch was hired in May for one of two new positions approved this season by the NCAA — an expansion of college basketball coaching staffs that will allow programs to have five on-court instructors in addition to the head coach. Welch is expected to oversee the team’s offense and game-planning, along with other duties.

Bruiser Flint, one of Calipari’s earliest assistant coaches at UMass, also remains on staff and could fill the other NCAA-approved position for the Wildcats during the 2023-24 season, though more additions (and additional clarity) are expected in the coming weeks.

Martin’s ties to the UK coaching staff go well beyond Calipari.

He began his college coaching career at Manhattan in 1999 before Flint hired him at UMass for the 2000-01 season. Flint retained Martin as an assistant coach when he made the move to Drexel University the following season, and they coached together there for three years before Martin joined the St. John’s coaching staff for two years.

His next stop was Memphis, and the Tigers accumulated a 71-6 record in his two seasons with the program, advancing to the Elite Eight in 2007 and the NCAA title game in 2008.

“Chuck is a veteran in this profession who will be a great benefit to our team and staff,” Calipari said in a statement Thursday. “He has ties not only to me when we were on staff at Memphis together but also to several other members of our staff. Chuck is an established coach who will be our assistant coach and recruiting coordinator, looking to open new doors to make our successful recruiting even stronger.”

When Martin and Derek Kellogg (UMass) left Memphis following the 2007-08 season for head coaching jobs, Antigua was one of the replacements Calipari hired for what would be his final Tigers’ staff before leaving for Kentucky the following year.

Antigua and Martin also attended the same high school — St. Raymond’s in Bronx, N.Y. — and are both members of the school’s hall of fame.

“He’s wonderful. He’s a wonderful person,” Calipari told the Poughkeepsie Journal of Martin in the summer of 2008. “Everyone is going to really enjoy him.”

Martin was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and grew up in the Bronx. He played basketball at Monmouth University and graduated from the school in 1993.

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