The Holy Land of Hoops

For the third time in the past 5 years, Calipari has been out coached in the Final Four despite having overwhelmingly superior talent - first, by Jim Calhoun, then by Kevin Ollie, and finally by Bo Ryan. Same thing at Memphis. Writers talk about Kentucky's youth, but Cauley-Stein is a junior and the Harrison twins are sophomores who've played 78 games in 2 years. For a lot of players, that's 3 years worth of college ball. And they already had 6 tournament games under their belts when they came into this postseason. That's more than many players see in a 4 year career. There was actually a lot of experience not his team.

The talent differential has been just stunning. Wisconsin has one 5-star recruit on this roster (Dekker) and one 4-star (Koenig) while Kentucky has nothing but 4 and mostly 5 star recruits. Kaminsky, the National POY, was a 3-star recruit who didn't even start his first 2 years. While Kaminsky was developing into the best player in the country, far more highly rated recruits are sitting on the bench at Kentucky not playing and not going one and done to the NBA as they had hoped.

Kyle Wiltjer left Kentucky to become a star at Gonzaga because he realized he wasn't going to develop at Kentucky. Are high school players going to realize that all of the hype at Kentucky is nothing but a lot of smoke created by someone who's nothing but an overpaid sneaker salesman?

The short awnser is no. Cal has never been a gray game coach, but there is the perception that he gets guys to the nba. That is what the recruits truely care about. That's why he is the king of the one and dones. Personally I think the idea that he gets guys to the NBA is ridiculous. He gets five of the top ten HS players every year. Of course they should be going to the NBA.

To the question BM, I don't think it hurts his recruiting at all. A couple of things...
1). Which other coach has been to the FF as much as Cal recently? None. So if you are a top 10 kid and want the best chance to play on a big stage UK is the surest bet. I don't think Cal is a great coach but his resume of getting teams to the FF is impressive.
2). Other than Coach K show me a coach that has consistently gotten his team's in position to win a NC? Self? No. Williams? No. Sean Miller? No. Marta? No. Those are the programs competing for these kinds of kids.
3). NBA. Like it or not, UK has been an NBA 1st round factory. Kids want to play in the NBA and Cal has been able to sell them on the idea that he has the formula to get kids to the show.
4). He doesn't need to develop talent. He just recruits it. Either you prove you can play now or he finds someone the next year who can. You'll never see a Frank Kamisky or a Daniel Ochefu or L. Henton at UK. I think that is the one advantage everyone else is always going to have over UK. A dream team of 18-19 year olds vs a team with 3-4 22 yr olds.

Bottom line is that I think many of these kids see UK as the apex of college hoops. I don't think that's going to change any time soon. The memory of the specific losses will fade but the brand will not lose much luster while he is there.

Whats going to hurt UK's recruiting is Slice leaving for SJU and taking Diallo with him. If we can lure him away (UK's best recruiter) then maybe we can siphon off some of those kids he's been recruiting for UK.

GumbyDamnit! wrote:To the question BM, I don't think it hurts his recruiting at all. A couple of things...
1). Which other coach has been to the FF as much as Cal recently? None. So if you are a top 10 kid and want the best chance to play on a big stage UK is the surest bet. I don't think Cal is a great coach but his resume of getting teams to the FF is impressive.
2). Other than Coach K show me a coach that has consistently gotten his team's in position to win a NC? Self? No. Williams? No. Sean Miller? No. Marta? No. Those are the programs competing for these kinds of kids.
3). NBA. Like it or not, UK has been an NBA 1st round factory. Kids want to play in the NBA and Cal has been able to sell them on the idea that he has the formula to get kids to the show.
4). He doesn't need to develop talent. He just recruits it. Either you prove you can play now or he finds someone the next year who can. You'll never see a Frank Kamisky or a Daniel Ochefu or L. Henton at UK. I think that is the one advantage everyone else is always going to have over UK. A dream team of 18-19 year olds vs a team with 3-4 22 yr olds.

Bottom line is that I think many of these kids see UK as the apex of college hoops. I don't think that's going to change any time soon. The memory of the specific losses will fade but the brand will not lose much luster while he is there.

Your point #3 is by far the most important. He gets his guys ready for the NBA. That's all that is important to these kids.

what made this years Kentucky team different from the others was they actually weren't all freshmen. They had a key junior and 4 sophomores who played last night. And you just wonder if last night's game showed how that injury to the junior who tore his ACL back in December meant something.

Even if Slice left Kentucky- it's not going to change much. Top 10 recruits come because of the head coach, not the assistant coach.

Nik, ast nights loss will not hurt kentuckys recruiting

These kids will all find themselves in the NBA, they got tons of positive press all yr.

cal's recruiting has very little to do with his on court success. it's his ties to guys like WWW that gets him the top recruits.

Kentucky and Duke are the two easiest basketball programs to recruit to in America. They don't recruit, they select. If you have seen Kentucky's facilities, you will realize that all Calipari has to do is get a kid on campus and walk him through the BB team condo. It is like a five star hotel, with pictures of all the recent KY-NBA players adorning the walls.

Coach K has the same effect at Duke. Their facilities don't match Lexington, but the Coach K mystic has the same effect.

Last night's game did nothing to hurt KY, and tomorrow's loss by Duke to Wisconsin won't hurt them either.

HELL NO! Waste of bandwidth.

Here is an interesting and very revealing comment from Coach K this morning.

Coach K said only parents involved in recruiting with freshmen. No others, including AAU coaches. "Kind of old fashioned," he said.