Kentucky Basketball: Flashback to Tubby Smith’s 2004 recruiting class

The personal connection

In the hopes of saving my Kentucky fandom card, I do follow along, but not at the rate I did when I was 16 or 17.  For some perspective, I’ll be 29 this year. And while that may not seem like a long time back, some simple math will put my prime of recruit following into a different era. Tubby Smith.

Now before you roll your eyes and click over to one of Frank’s excellent posts, stay with me. This isn’t intended to be malicious towards Tubby in anyway. In fact, it’s probably a propaganda piece in the eyes of how some feel about him still (scratches head). In any case, Tubby had some good gets as when it came to recruiting. Not Coach Cal level, but still good considering.

One class that I really enjoyed following and seeing develop from the beginning was the 2004 class. Raise your hand if you remember Rajon Rondo, Joe Crawford and Randolph Morris. Heck, I’ll even throw in Ramel Bradley. All of those guys, along with Adam Williams, made up the 2004 recruiting class. Three of the five were considered 5-star recruits (Rondo, Crawford, Morris). Bradley was a high three, low four-star guy depending on the recruiting service and Williams a three-star.