Kentucky Basketball Recruiting Buzz: What Everyone Is Thinking, And What No One Is Saying
By Paul Jordan
You know that Adolph Rupp must have had a serious case of indigestion every time that UCLA hit the floor in the 60’s. Rupp had to stand by and watch the Wizard of Westwood start hauling in every big time recruit in the nation that he wanted, and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop it. And for a man who prided himself on his recruiting prowess, it must have stung when the recruiting game started to pass him by, at least until Joe B. Hall came along and started putting the blue chips back on the pine for UK. Wooden had his run of incredibly talented teams come to an end soon after that, but not before he took the very best in the game at the time and won again and again and again. Sound familiar? Maybe the very same game plan that a certain UK coach is trying to resurrect, only this time for the Wildcats?
Well, here is what no one is saying yet. He already has. If John Calipari wants a kid, he simply dials the phone. Oh he is going to make his showings where he needs to, put his face in front of the cameras and reporters eyes where he wants to be seen, but a phone call from John Calipari is now the answer to a young man’s prayers. There are good recruiters out there to be sure, but no one is going to topple Calipari as long as the program stays clean and the kids keep getting drafted into the NBA.
Calipari said when he got here that he wanted to make Kentucky the most feared name in recruiting, and he has done just that. If Calipari thinks you are the kind of young man that he wants at UK. And you exhibit the qualities he holds sacred, you aren’t even going to look in another direction if Cal does not want you to. Period. The simple truth is, why would you want to go anywhere else? Kentucky might not win every NCAA Championship every year, but who else has better odds of doing it year after year now? This year’s stellar class makes Calipari’s third in a row, and no one else is even close for the last three years. Calipari is known as the Commander In Chief of Point Guard U, but he gets big men in, defenders, muscle men, any kind of a top notch player has an better shot at getting drafted into the NBA from Kentucky than anywhere else.
Now as we all know, you have to play the games for real and not on paper, or we would have a lot more banners hanging in Rupp than we do right now. However, now the paper is starting to hold a message for all of those out there who are competing for these kids against Calipari. And the message is, “Go Home”. If John Calipari wants his man, he gets him. And the only thing standing in his way is the NCAA and their ego maniacal committees. So unless they start inventing more Calipari rules really quick, this is not only going to get ugly, it is going to really painful for a lot of people who don’t like the color blue.
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