Could Jack Givens be the next UK Radio Network basketball analyst?

Former UK All-American Jack Givens apparently will join Tom Leach on the UK Radio Network for exhibition basketball games in the Bahamas next month. (Tina Cox Photo)

Kentucky Radio Network football analyst Jeff Piecoro considers himself lucky to have worked with two of the best radio personalities — Joe Nuxhall and Mike Pratt.

Piecoro, the new sports director at ABC-36 in Lexington, worked with Nuxhall, the former Cincinnati Reds pitcher and long-time color analyst for the Reds radio network, during his pregame and postgame shows for the Reds.

“He came to my golf tournament for autism one year straight from chemo treatment. He came in with a smile on his face,” Piecoro said.

He said it was the same with Pratt, who battled cancer for over two years but missed only two games as the UK Radio Network basketball analyst.

“We never realized how much pain Mike was in. He couldn’t sit for long periods or stand for long periods,” Piecoro said. “No one said a bad thing ever about Mike or Joe. To be friends with them is really special.”

Leach and Piecoro will be calling UK’s first football game in less than seven weeks. However, Leach will need to be joined by someone much sooner than that for basketball because UK has four exhibition games in the Bahamas next month.

“Tom is a professional. He and Mike were really tight. It will be interesting to see who joins him,” Piecoro said. “When they go to the Bahamas, Jack (Givens) is going with them.”

Givens is the former UK All-American who led Kentucky to the national championship in 1978 when he had that sensational final game against Duke. Givens has also done pregame work for the UK Radio Network.

“Football is a 12-game schedule. You drive or fly in on Friday, do a game Saturday and come home,” Piecoro said. “Basketball is a job in itself. You are gone a lot. You really can’t have another job with that.

“It will be interesting to see who they figure out will replace Mike full-time. Jack has another job, so I don’t know if he could even if he wanted to because of all the travel with the week-night games and five-month schedule. But whoever it is will work great with Tom because he’s a professional who will make it easy on anyone.”