Kentucky Great Tyler Ulis to Join John Calipari’s Staff, per Report

The 2016 SEC Player of the Year was severely injured in a car crash in February.

A beloved former Kentucky basketball star is coming home.

Former Wildcats guard Tyler Ulis, a key cog on Kentucky’s legendary 38-1 team from 2014-15, who went on to become an All-American his sophomore year, will join coach John Calipari’s staff, according to a Wednesday report from Jack Pilgrim of Kentucky Sports Radio.

Ulis will join the Wildcats’ staff as a student assistant at the start of the new semester. Kentucky is currently 8-3 and ranked No. 19 in the country; it opens SEC play Wednesday night at Missouri.

From 2014-16, Ulis played 72 games for the Wildcats, averaging 11.3 points per game. He came off the bench in every game he played his freshman year, when he was teammates with future NBA All-Stars Karl-Anthony Towns and Devin Booker. His sophomore year, moving into a starting role, he averaged 17.3 points per game and was Kentucky’s first SEC Player of the Year since Anthony Davis in 2012.

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The Suns selected him 34th in the 2016 NBA draft, reuniting him with Booker. He played 133 games in three seasons for Phoenix and the Bulls, averaging 7.5 points per game.

In February, Ulis broke multiple bones in a head-on car crash in his native Michigan. In a wheelchair in July, he expressed gratitude to WKYT-TV in Lexington, telling the station that “God gave me a gift.”