I try to stay away from the message boards on a lot of UK “fansites” because some of them tend to be, can we say, a little on the dramatic side. If you listen to a lot of the regular posters, Calipari has suddenly lost his ability to recruit and UK is doomed to go back into the Tubby Smith dark age of recruiting.
Not so fast. While I am sure that even Calipari would love to have more than one recruit on the board by now, there are a few reasons why the results are a little slow for Calipari’s second class.
A lot of the big name recruits are going to take the “wait and see” approach with Calipari. I fully expect both Brandon Knight and Josh Selby to not announce until May.
One reason is one that a lot of bluebloods may not like to hear, but it is a fact that right now, Calipari is a bigger name to the recruits than Kentucky. Not to bash the UK legacy but when UK won their last title in 1998, the average recruit was about 7 years old. When they were in high school and really starting to pay attention to college basketball, the big names in the tournament have been Florida, Kansas, UConn, Michigan State, North Carolina and a few others. Even Gonzaga has had more name recognition in March Madness the last four years than Kentucky. I don’t like typing it either, but it’s true. How many times did we hear interviews with prospects that said something like “I don’t know much about Kentucky, but I know Calipari”. This is why Kentucky went and got Calipari.
Secondly, these recruits are going to take a “wait and see” approach with Kentucky and see how the season turns out. While it’s almost a given that John Wall may be gone after this year, these PG recruits like Knight and Selby are going to watch UK games very carefully and see how Bledsoe and Wall play together. And they are going to ask themselves if they can step in and play the John Wall role in this offense. If this season goes as expected and Wall finds himself as a national player of the year candidate, point guards are going to flock to UK, knowing that two top PG prospects can go to UK and not only succeed, but thrive.
Third, UK is way behind on a lot of these 2010 recruits due to the coaching change. Basketball coaches start talking to kids their freshman year in HS these days, and UK and Calipari lost a lot of ground with these recruits. Not that it is a bad thing, as UK has made up a lot of ground on players like Terrence Jones, Tobias Harris, and Adreian Payne. And sometimes it is just damn hard to play catch up.
And finally Wildcat fans, Calipari is not going to deliver the number one recruiting class every single year. It is very possible that Calipari’s first recruiting class will end up being his best class at UK. Is it all downhill from here? No, UK is in good with several top recruits for this year and even with the loss of Irving and Payne, UK is still going to have a top 10 class this year.
The way it looks right now, I fully expect for UK to finish with a class this year of Stacey Poole, either Brandon Knight or Josh Selby, either C.J. Leslie or Terrence Jones (maybe both) and quite possibly Doron Lamb. With top recruit for 2011 Michael Gilchrist already rumored to be a Kentucky lean, it’s apparent that there will be no shortage of star power traipsing through Lexington the next decade or so.
So relax Wildcat fans. Come in off the ledge and enjoy the ride. Calipari and UK are gonna be OK…
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