Kentucky Basketball Recruiting: Big Blue Madness Effect
By Paul Jordan
With the unbelievable amount of talent that will be showing up for Big Blue Madness this year, it has begged the question of how successful of a recruiting tool it has been in the past? There has been some success but no one has really tried to bring in a haul like Calipari is bringing in this year.
We will take a year by year look at BBM visitors from 2006-present to see how many recruits actually committed after they were in attendance for BBM.
2006:
-Patrick Patterson
-AJ Stewart
-Jai Lucas
As you know two of these players, Patterson and Stewart, ended up committing to UK. However, neither committed immediately following BBM. But UK got 2 of the 3.
2007:
-Darius Miller
-Chris Singleton
-KC Ross-Miller
-Dakotah Euton
-Chad Jackson
-Verdell Jones
-Garett Stutz
-John Wall
-Jon Hood
-Deandre Liggins
Of the 2007 BBM visitors list, 5 of the 9 were one time commits to UK. Only 3 ended up playing for UK and John Wall committed a few years later. So out of this class you could say only 4 players, John Wall, Deandre Liggins, Darius Miller and Jon Hood, committed and played for the Wildcats. Liggins and Miller were already committed.
2008:
-Jon Hood
-Daniel Orton
-Russell Byrd
-GJ Vilarino
I couldn’t find a complete list for 2008 but this is most of the visitors from 2008. Orton did commit while he was still in Lexington on his visit and Vilarino committed but never played for UK. So 1 of the players from this year making his first appearance at BBM ultimately played at UK. Hood counts in the previous year.
2009:
-Mike Kidd-Gilchrist
-CJ Leslie
-Kyrie Irving
-Tobias Harris
-Achraf Yacoubou
This was Calipari’s first BBM and he had five major recruits in attendance. Of these five only one will be playing at UK this season and that is Mike Kidd-Gilchrist. UK got commitments from none of the other players.
2010:
-Mike Kidd-Gilchrist
-Anthony Davis
-Kyle Wiltjer
-Marquis Teague
This was an odd year for BBM visitors because all of the visitors had already committed to play for UK. So no new prospects were in attendance (it was still fun though, right?)
Now what all this means is probably nothing. But it does show that most of the time the visitors who come to BBM do not end up playing at UK. There has only been one year with close to the amount of players Calipari is bringing in this year and that was in 2007 when 9 prospects were brought in, 5 of those committed but only 4 played for UK. 3 if you count John Wall as not factoring in that years decisions, which I don’t.
But it also shows that UK has never had a BBM where at least 1 prospect in attendance didn’t eventually commit to UK. This is good news considering how many and how many high quality players UK has coming in for BBM this year. In fact only counting first time BBM visitors UK has at least received a commitment from 14/23 and has had 11/23 actually play for UK. Those aren’t bad numbers.
Lets take a look at the BBM visitors list for this year so far:
2011:
-Shabazz Muhammed
-Alex Poythress
-Archie Goodwin
-TJ Warren
-DaJuan Coleman
-Willie Cauley
Underclassmen:
-Andrew and Aaron Harrison (2013)
-Chris Walker (2013)
-Dakari Johnson (2014)
That is an incredible list, and if the trend holds then it appears that UK will get commitments from at least some of them, and with the quality on that list it means recruiting will still be on fire for Calipari.
So everyone calm down, history says recruiting will be fine based on BBM numbers. Plus we have Cal, and there has never been this amount of talent assembled in one midnight madness before at any school. And who knows, with Cal, we may get all of them.
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