How many recruits choose a school for NON-basketball-related reasons? How many for even NON-NIL/money reasons? How many don’t care WHICH blueblood program they go to? How many grew up favoring one program …only to be swayed at the last minute to another? Recruits probably aren’t NEEEEEEAARLY as knowledgable & wrapped up in comparing programs’ numbers of final fours, Elite Eights & titles as we die-hard fans are. They may not care about “modern era” program success…or…perhaps ONLY care about modern era success (because they don’t know much basketball history). How many can’t think for themselves, so they let their best friends/parents/AAU coaches make all their decisions? In the distant future, when players are older and have nothing to lose, we could end up hearing the truth about the deciding factors on school choices. Until then, we can only guess, but I think we’re too quick to say that recruiting decisions are based only on program history and NIL money.
I can only come to you from a Kansas fan’s perspective. As someone familiar with Lawrence & KU, I think it’s obvious what some of these important-to-recruits, Lawrence&KU-related, but non-NIL and non-basketball-history-related, aesthetic variables might be (which add up to ultimately sway recruits to KU), but I wouldn’t expect Kentucky fans to know about them.
I’ve never been to Lexington, or even Kentucky, so it wouldn’t be fair for me to pretend I know how to accurately compare the two universities, visually. Though I’m very familiar with Lawrence, all I have to go on with Lexington and UK, are things like: photos, UK’s basketball history, UK’s academic numbers & rankings, and the geographic and cultural info pertaining to the Lexington, Louisville & Cincinnati. I’ve seen stats on crime rates, “friendliest states”, poorest states, quality of living, political/voting tendencies and (as I said) academic rankings…as well as endowment money, and opinion articles on “the most beautiful college campuses”.
KU puts a LOT of money into maintaining its old, historic campus buildings, but WAY, WAY more into building lots of new, state-of-the-art, modern-looking teaching buildings and residence halls. The city also promotes, very well, the building of privately owned apartments close to campus. There have been some big ones built recently. (So, in general, there are a LOT of new buildings around KU’s campus.)
I would doubt that most Kentuckians know how KU’s campus is built all along the top of a quite sizable hill, that’s in sort of an “S” shape, so, it’s neat (imho) how, when you’re walking around KU’s campus, you can often see the town of Lawrence, below. Now it’s not a huge hill, but it’s high enough to look neat (imo). K-State fans call KU “Snob Hill”, by the way, and THEY ALSO have a hill in the middle of their town (Bluemont Hill, which is just slightly taller than KU’s “Mt. Oread” hill), that you can drive to the top of, which overlooks KSU’s campus and the town of Manhattan.
Annnnyway, all of that simply aesthetic stuff has NOTHING, whatsoever, to do with basketball, but… I would guess a beautiful campus could help sway a recruit. It’s true that Kansas is a very flat state, but there ARE extremely hilly places here & there — just none that are real tall. The upper northeast corner of Kansas, from Manhattan, east to Topeka and Lawrence, and on east to Kansas City has some very hilly areas. But we have nothing compared to the huge hills/mountains, of eastern Kentucky (that I’ve seen pictures of). Still, whoever decided to put our state universities in both Lawrence and Manhattan knew the right places to put them, because they are pretty little towns, with many more trees and and many more hills than your average Kansas town.
Still, it’s nothing compared to the scenic beauty of Kentucky, I’m sure, SO ...
...I’d be curious to see photos of Kentucky’s scenic beauty and UK’s campus. In turn, I’ll share some Lawrence and KU photos. (And I found a couple of topographic maps which show some of the hills I was talking about.)
Now I KNOW I’m just rambling here (I blame the medicine), but I wanted to make the point that, as a KU fan and Kansan, I can see lots of reasons why a recruit would want to choose to live in Lawrence and go to school “up on the hill”. Sure, a lot of Lawrencians and students are very…unique…in their preferences and behaviors and how they dress, but that all just makes for a very unusual, unique and interesting place.
Still rambling…but I WILL share some photos of KU and Lawrence. Like Kentucky fans (I’m sure) are proud of Lexington and UK, I’m ALSO proud of KU and Lawrence.
Note: It’s a 15-minute drive from east Lawrence to the western edge of the KC suburbs. (It looks to be about 70-ish miles from the outside edge of Lexington to either Louisville or Cincinnati — is that right?) Cincinnati’s metro population is around 2.26 million, KC’s metro pop is around 2.21 million, Louisville’s is around 1.36 million, Lawrence’s pop is maybe 110,000, and what is Lexington’s? Looks like maybe a couple-hundred thousand? 500,000 in the surrounding area? The county to the east of Lawrence, KS (Johnson County, KS, has 600,000 people, is super-fast-growing, and full of brand-new, trendy places to spend money. It’s among the wealthiest counties in the nation, so I would guess that a lot of KU’s main boosters live there.) I read where KU’s endowment is $2.2 billion, and UK’s is $1.685. I also read where KU is in the top-20 in number of Rhodes scholars (with 27, and Kentucky has 10.)…not that a university’s academic reputation would necessarily make much of a difference to basketball recruits. I think, overall, both KU and UK rank in the 100’s of “Best Colleges/Universities in the US”, with KU ranking 121, and UK ranking 137, so neither one is very “top”.
I’d like to get opinions on Lawrence, KU, and KC, from UK fans who’ve been to there. What was your impression? Did you actually go up the hill to campus? Did you shop on Mass Street? Did you go to Allen Fieldhouse and the museum(s) (the one actually in the AFH entrance and also the one to the north of it)?
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I can only come to you from a Kansas fan’s perspective. As someone familiar with Lawrence & KU, I think it’s obvious what some of these important-to-recruits, Lawrence&KU-related, but non-NIL and non-basketball-history-related, aesthetic variables might be (which add up to ultimately sway recruits to KU), but I wouldn’t expect Kentucky fans to know about them.
I’ve never been to Lexington, or even Kentucky, so it wouldn’t be fair for me to pretend I know how to accurately compare the two universities, visually. Though I’m very familiar with Lawrence, all I have to go on with Lexington and UK, are things like: photos, UK’s basketball history, UK’s academic numbers & rankings, and the geographic and cultural info pertaining to the Lexington, Louisville & Cincinnati. I’ve seen stats on crime rates, “friendliest states”, poorest states, quality of living, political/voting tendencies and (as I said) academic rankings…as well as endowment money, and opinion articles on “the most beautiful college campuses”.
KU puts a LOT of money into maintaining its old, historic campus buildings, but WAY, WAY more into building lots of new, state-of-the-art, modern-looking teaching buildings and residence halls. The city also promotes, very well, the building of privately owned apartments close to campus. There have been some big ones built recently. (So, in general, there are a LOT of new buildings around KU’s campus.)
I would doubt that most Kentuckians know how KU’s campus is built all along the top of a quite sizable hill, that’s in sort of an “S” shape, so, it’s neat (imho) how, when you’re walking around KU’s campus, you can often see the town of Lawrence, below. Now it’s not a huge hill, but it’s high enough to look neat (imo). K-State fans call KU “Snob Hill”, by the way, and THEY ALSO have a hill in the middle of their town (Bluemont Hill, which is just slightly taller than KU’s “Mt. Oread” hill), that you can drive to the top of, which overlooks KSU’s campus and the town of Manhattan.
Annnnyway, all of that simply aesthetic stuff has NOTHING, whatsoever, to do with basketball, but… I would guess a beautiful campus could help sway a recruit. It’s true that Kansas is a very flat state, but there ARE extremely hilly places here & there — just none that are real tall. The upper northeast corner of Kansas, from Manhattan, east to Topeka and Lawrence, and on east to Kansas City has some very hilly areas. But we have nothing compared to the huge hills/mountains, of eastern Kentucky (that I’ve seen pictures of). Still, whoever decided to put our state universities in both Lawrence and Manhattan knew the right places to put them, because they are pretty little towns, with many more trees and and many more hills than your average Kansas town.
Still, it’s nothing compared to the scenic beauty of Kentucky, I’m sure, SO ...
...I’d be curious to see photos of Kentucky’s scenic beauty and UK’s campus. In turn, I’ll share some Lawrence and KU photos. (And I found a couple of topographic maps which show some of the hills I was talking about.)
Now I KNOW I’m just rambling here (I blame the medicine), but I wanted to make the point that, as a KU fan and Kansan, I can see lots of reasons why a recruit would want to choose to live in Lawrence and go to school “up on the hill”. Sure, a lot of Lawrencians and students are very…unique…in their preferences and behaviors and how they dress, but that all just makes for a very unusual, unique and interesting place.
Still rambling…but I WILL share some photos of KU and Lawrence. Like Kentucky fans (I’m sure) are proud of Lexington and UK, I’m ALSO proud of KU and Lawrence.
Note: It’s a 15-minute drive from east Lawrence to the western edge of the KC suburbs. (It looks to be about 70-ish miles from the outside edge of Lexington to either Louisville or Cincinnati — is that right?) Cincinnati’s metro population is around 2.26 million, KC’s metro pop is around 2.21 million, Louisville’s is around 1.36 million, Lawrence’s pop is maybe 110,000, and what is Lexington’s? Looks like maybe a couple-hundred thousand? 500,000 in the surrounding area? The county to the east of Lawrence, KS (Johnson County, KS, has 600,000 people, is super-fast-growing, and full of brand-new, trendy places to spend money. It’s among the wealthiest counties in the nation, so I would guess that a lot of KU’s main boosters live there.) I read where KU’s endowment is $2.2 billion, and UK’s is $1.685. I also read where KU is in the top-20 in number of Rhodes scholars (with 27, and Kentucky has 10.)…not that a university’s academic reputation would necessarily make much of a difference to basketball recruits. I think, overall, both KU and UK rank in the 100’s of “Best Colleges/Universities in the US”, with KU ranking 121, and UK ranking 137, so neither one is very “top”.
I’d like to get opinions on Lawrence, KU, and KC, from UK fans who’ve been to there. What was your impression? Did you actually go up the hill to campus? Did you shop on Mass Street? Did you go to Allen Fieldhouse and the museum(s) (the one actually in the AFH entrance and also the one to the north of it)?
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