No matter how you spell it, Louisville coach Rick Pitino is making a massive push to add to his 2011 class. And to the (chagrin, annoyment, amusement — pick an adjective) of Kentucky fans, he is doing so with players that Kentucky is no longer recruiting. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It just adds to the level of rivalry between the Wildcats and Cardinals. And provides plenty of punchlines for the Wildcat fans.
Yesterday, Tony Wroten, the former number one object of many Wildcat fans desire, had an in home visit with Rick
Patino
Pitino and will be visiting the Ville on Thursday. Wroten has announced that he will be making his decision on October 8 and it is believed that his finalists are Louisville and Washington.
Meanwhile, the villain in training Quincy Miller has supposedly decided on a final two of Baylor and the Ville. The emergence of Baylor as a player has to make the Louisville fans nervous as Miller had his visit to the Ville a couple of weeks ago, but that may have just been to get in an opportunity to stalk John Calipari. And it is widely assumed that wherever Miller goes, Duece Bello will follow.
The one thing that is not being lost on these Louisville recruits however is the sparkling new Yum! Center.
Some Louisville fans have been tweeting pictures of the Yum! Center to the potential recruits and claiming to have the best student center in the country and promising to fill all
24,000
22,000 seats if Miller and Wroten commit to the Ville.
Of course, where Miller and Wroten are mentioned, twitter has to be involved. In additions to Wroten’s misspelled shout out to his new possible coach, he has been keeping up the recruiting theatrics, getting the linebeards whipped into a frenzy with self serving statements:
"I PLAY TO THE CROWD SO WHATEVER SCHOOL I CHOOSE THE #GOTTA HAVE A CRAZYYYYYYY #StudentSection about 20 hours ago via web"
So the drama continues with the former Cat commits. I have to admit, I too, at one time, was enamored with these guys and would have readily accepted them in Blue and White, but with Wroten and Miller, we have found that there is a downside to social media.
If you compare the twitter accounts/facebook pages of the former Cat recruits versus the actual Cat commits (Teague, Gilchrist, Wiltjer, Davis), you notice a stark difference. The guys that have committed to UK seem to be more of a team oriented group, while the former Cat recruits are self serving … which may explain why they are former Cat recruits.
Not trying to bash on 17 year olds, but just consider this an early edition of “Know Your Enemy” or “What I hate about you — Louisville Edition”. One thing for sure, is if these guys do go to the Ville, I already have a new nickname for the 2011 Cards. Let’s call them “Me first and the gimme gimmes”. No offense to Fat Mike and his awesome band though.
Keep following www.http://wildcatbluenation.com for the best in Kentucky basketball and football news, rumors, and opinions. By Kentucky fans for Kentucky fans