by Paul Jordan
Face it. Season one of the Calipari/Pitino “Battle for the Bluegrass” was a TKO for John Calipari. The final blow (Marquis Teague committing to UK) was a brutal uppercut to the chin which floored Pitino and the Cardinals. And John Calipari is way ahead on points in season number two as Cal has landed the top recruiting class for 2010. Calipari also added former Louisville Cardinal and one of the top recruiters in college basketball, Kenny Payne to his staff. But you get the feeling that despite the Cardinal’s being the whipping boy of UK recently, there is still a lot of fight left in Rick Pitino.
Recently, former Memphis Tiger Roburt Sallie landed at Louisville. Granted, I don’t think Calipari really tried to get Sallie when he announced his plans to transfer and while Saliie is not a five star recruit, he can be a deadly sharpshooter, something UK could use. Deep down, I don’t think Cal is too thrilled about one of his former charges wearing Cardinal red … but in the end, it will probably irk Cal the same way it irked UK fans to see Walter McCarty on the Cardinal bench all those years.
And in a kind of answer to Calipari’s hiring Payne, Pitino added former Nike employee Tim Fuller to his coaching staff and it is expected that Fuller is the one to build the relationships with the recruits and get Pitino into the kid’s living room. And the addition of Fuller, who boasts Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo as clients could give the Ville an added boost of street cred and help the top recruits see that Louisville could be a path to the NBA as well. It is a shot in the arm that Pitino badly needs. His Cardinals went 0-60 in NBA draft picks this year and could repeat that feat next year.
But yesterday, it appeared that Pitino’s moves had paid off as it appeared that the Ville may be at least in the conversation with 2011 recruit Quincy Miller. Jody Demling has reported that Quincy Miller said that he was “feeling Louisville” and he had some good things to say about new assistant Tim Perry. Now the bit of this that does concern me a bit is that Deuce Bello has said that he will be visiting soon. There is a lot of speculation that Miller and Bello may be a package deal and with 2011 scholarships at a premium, Kentucky has not seemed that interested in Bello, a three star recruit.
And for his credit, Calipari has passed on a couple of “package deals” in his time at Kentucky. First we had the Henry brothers, CJ and Xavier. You can argue that Kansas out recruited Calipari for Xavier Henry, but it did not seem that Cal went after X with the same gusto as other recruits. And then Memphis signed the Barton brothers while Calipari was in China. Once again, you get the feeling that Calipari was interested in the five star player, but not thrilled about the three star add on. And the Miller-Bello duo is currently another five star-three star offering.
I know that some Louisville fans have taken Quincy Miller’s comments and ran with them to point to make it seem like Quincy Miller going to Louisville could cause Marquis Teague to change his mind and follow Miller to Louisville. That’s absurd and it’s not going to happen. True, Teague is close with Quincy Miller and wants him to come to Kentucky. But he is also close with Michael Gilchrist and knows that even without Quincy Miller, Kentucky will have the top class in 2011. It’s true that Miller is still the big prize for Kentucky, but if he goes elsewhere, Kentucky seemingly has it’s choice of fellow power forwards Anthony Davis, Chane Behanan, and Johnny O’Bryant, all top 36 players in the 2011 class.
In the end, who knows if the hiring of Tim Perry is enough to stop the Cardinal bleeding and lure a recruit like Miller to Louisville. From all indications, Miller is still very high on Kentucky and Kentucky can still stick another dagger in the Cardinal’s heart by luring former commit Michael Chandler as well.
So while Calipari is continuing his domination of the Cardinals, it is interesting to note whether Tim Perry can bring more than a ripple to the Cardinal’s pulse.
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