It ain't NIL or Portal. It's player evaluation

[TucsonCat]

Keep seeing we're not old enough in NIL or Portal era. Since when was that an issue? That Kansas team we whipped in 2012 with our freshmen. Junior, rs Junior, Senior, Junior, rs Junior. I don't care if that Oakland team was allowed to play another 5 more years together. 2012 and 2010 with all those freshmen beats their monkey ass .

But what that 2012 team had, along with 10, 11, 14 and 15? Good college players. The point of getting these one and done was that they would contribute year one on our campus

But were not getting recruiting classes of players that can play now. We're getting high ranked classes of guys that project to be good pros one day. Or never. Bradshaw. Ugo. Wagner. Edwards. Askew. Collins. Brooks. Whitney. Boston. Or Portal starters like Fredrick and Wheeler from P5 schools that didn't translate to Kentucky.

I think Cal fell in love with the Green room. Some argue he always did. But again, those players were good on campus. The new batch are rangy athletes that pro scouts were dreaming would develop a jump shot and a handle. Or P5 busts. And he feels beholden to play them more than the few players who contribute more now.

 

[DraftCat]

The strategy should of always been to recruit 3-4 year players and supplement them with 1 or 2 elite freshman.

The goal should of never been a team of 18 year olds.

 

[FitchandMurray29]

To me it feels like a volume play on freshmen talent accumulation. The problems though are the impact on dissuading transfers to come and the bust rate on someone who has never played at this level is obviously higher than those that have.

That’s why I cringe reading the last couple weeks our contact with Liam McNeeley. There should be a player that’s played college basketball at every position. Think of last year, we were 1 Reeves transfer away from not having anyone on the roster at the 1-3 positions that had ever played in college.

Transfer portal is a cheat code for those that can’t recruit. It evens the playing field amongst high majors exponentially. I do suspect our lack of organization as a program and Cal turning off boosters, has forced us to turn to freshmen less inclined to be bought with NIL(just paid) than the top transfers.

 

[logiUK]

The strategy should of always been to recruit 3-4 year players and supplement them with 1 or 2 elite freshman.

The goal should of never been a team of 18 year olds.

This is what it should have been, but I still don't think Calpari makes players that come back better.

Calipari isn't a coach, he's a showman. He recruits players as a platform to get them to the NBA, that's it.

Back when he first took over the Kentucky job, he was getting all of the top talent and top recruits - players that really didn't need college to get their game to the next level, but were required to go to college for one year before making the jump. When you get talent of that level, there's not a lot of coaching required.

Now - for whatever reason - he's not getting that same level of talent in - whether that's because other colleges are recruiting that type of player, players are more interested in being "THE" guy for a team in order to showcase themselves regardless of how the team actually performs, or players just aren't that good - I don't know.

The portal itself isn't going to fix things. Having "older" players isn't going to fix things. You need juniors and seniors who have spent 2 or 3 years within the same program that KNOW what is expected of them and can help the underclassmen understand what is expected of them. Bringing in players from the portal and they are just as new to a program as a freshman.

Ideally you get good, not great players, as freshmen that come back for their sophomore year and then come back for their junior year and by their junior year they are a vastly improved from what they were as a freshman. As those players become sophomores and juniors and seniors, all the while new classes are coming in and being taught how to handle themselves by those juniors and seniors and understanding of what the program is. And this just becomes a perpetual loop.

But this requires a coach that can teach players to become better players. This requires a coach to play players that make mistakes, allowing them to learn from those mistakes and grow. This requires a coach that is willing to sit a superior athletic freshman in favor of a growing sophomore that may be looked at to lead the team as a junior or senior.

That's not Calipari.