One of the most significant reasons of the current downfall of John Calipari recruiting all fall under the “coolness” factor. When Cal first got to Kentucky they were the hot team and Cal had a cool pitch to relate to the top guys. Then when we started winning and producing talent we had another pitch relating to us becoming the up and coming team with the national attention. The kids in this day in age of basketball are all about how cool a team is and the attention they get. I just think the NBA production pitch isn’t currently working because these kids feel the pressure to live up to the great names. Plain and simple Duke had the reality show, less pressure, and more attention and that’s what recruits want. Recruits have said in the past the lack of family atmosphere during their visits, and it might be that they see Kentucky as more of a boring team that just takes care of buisness (And Rupp’s gameday atmosphere doesn’t help this), and Duke as the cool university with the cool game environments. For the top kids going to a middle tier team, that’s all about relationships and selfishness of wanting to have all the attention and not compete for a spot (which Cal says all the time to recruits).
