It is amazing how much college sports have changed in the matter of 2 years
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Kyle Tucker tweet about first-team SEC
- Thread starter bthaunert
- Start date
Ain’t that nuts? The traditional recruit a guy from HS and develop him into a Star method appears nearly dead.
And I hope the folks I’ve seen here in the past suggesting that UK should be above taking transfers from little mid-majors are taking note. Seems you can’t win without them in the SEC nowadays.
this proves the Calipari model is dead and honestly it should have been abandoned around 2018.
I think you'll see very very soon that Freshmen will not be commanding serious NIL money unless they are a future Lebron as teams realize that NCAA championship teams are built in the portal, not by traditional recruiting/player development.
I think you'll see very very soon that Freshmen will not be commanding serious NIL money unless they are a future Lebron as teams realize that NCAA championship teams are built in the portal, not by traditional recruiting/player development.
The other thing I notice from this is, aside from Knecht, all these guys had been at their SEC school for 2 or more seasons (correct me if I missed someone). **Correction, Zyon Pullin was in his first season at Florida after 4 seasons at UC Riverside.**
I think that's the key to the transfer portal era. Find players who have proven they can play at the college level and have multiple years of eligibility. It may take them a year to adjust if they're jumping from a mid major to the SEC, but once they get it you have high returns. The senior/super seniors are good, but are basically just another version of the one-and-done phenomenon we've dealt with the last 15 years, and whether or not they can get it done in just one season is always going to be an open question. Whereas Reeves in year 2, while he ultimately exceeded expectations, was more or less a known quantity entering the year.
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Me too, and I was stupid enough to say I didn’t want him back after one poor performance in the tournament... He was SO good this year, consistency was very impressive. And he got raped on NIL. I really hope he sticks in the nba and makes some money.
He and Oscar both deserved better.
Covid and the portal killed Calipari's model. That was clear in the tournament year before last. Blue bloods no longer stacked two deep at every position, and mid-majors getting seasoned veteran mercenaries, along with 5th and sometimes 6th year players. It was literally men against boys. And in Kentucky's case, it was more true than ever.
Yup
Calipari didn’t adjust to the new college basketball. Still put together great teams- just didn’t have any grown ass men come tournament time.
It’s been an amazing sight to behold how fast some kentucky fans went from loving him to acting like he stole their wife and kids over essentially two games. Kind of sad and has really opened my eyes. Meanwhile, sane people can admit the reason for his downfall, still love and appreciate his success, be all in on mark pope and root for cal as one of OUR legends(unless he’s playing us or competing against us in the standings.
This shows why the portal is GREAT. Kids don’t stop developing at 18 or 19. Before the portal, most would star at a small school never to be heard from. Now they get their chance to move up and show their stuff.
People have a strong bias against kids who weren’t high school stars, and it’s beyond misplaced. That’s why you get dumb comments like “well we beat out Illinois state ☹️”.
I played D1 sports and anyone that saw me in high school wouldn’t have recognized me by junior year in college. No where close. Development is rapid at that age.
People have a strong bias against kids who weren’t high school stars, and it’s beyond misplaced. That’s why you get dumb comments like “well we beat out Illinois state ☹️”.
I played D1 sports and anyone that saw me in high school wouldn’t have recognized me by junior year in college. No where close. Development is rapid at that age.
Meh… don’t buy the “essentially two games” part. There were glaring deficiencies even with his best teams. Things that got us beat year after year and nothing changed.
I respect what he WAS able to accomplish here…and as a general rule I don’t really get “mad” about UK basketball but as a UK sports fan…Cal was doing things that were damaging the program and he was being stubborn about it.
If we want to win we the fans always need to call that out. That’s just the nature of major spectator/revenue sports.
I don’t think Cal is some horrible person. He seems to mostly be a genuinely good dude. Cant say that about some of our other former coaches that were arguably more successful. But when you’re getting paid near 8 figures a year to win basketball games…you gotta win basketball games.
We still have a few fans that are really struggling with that.
I don't know.... believe it or not but highly successful rich people can be really dumb with their money.
This also say`s to recruit and develop. Schools can recruit lower-level (higher 3 star and 4-star recruits) high school kids and if they stay, can be developed into great college players. Starting off might be a little slow, but after a couple of years, they`ll be ready to play, then the next set will be developing.
I`m all for recruiting 3-4 high school kids a year, then supplement with transfers.
I`m all for recruiting 3-4 high school kids a year, then supplement with transfers.
I actually read about some HS kids talking about this. How most won’t play and should go to a mid major to put up stats and then transfer to get good NIL The next year.
I played golf with a kid in high school that also played basketball. We used to shoot hoops and I beat him 1 on 1 a couple times and I sucked. He was a shorter skinny kid. Well by his senior year he grew about 8 inches and kept playing basketball and ended up playing for Bellarmine. 2X AA by the time he was a Junior there he was one of the best they had. He’s now a pro in Australia. Jeremy Kendle was his name. If you saw a picture of him early in HS you wouldn’t recognize him. They played Louisville while he was there and he scored like 28 on em I think around 2011, Behanon and Smith were on the team he played.
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yea, I think we may be going back to Jr. and Sr. dominated teams at the bluebloods, because they are the ones that can afford them
Just more proof that everytime we get a transfer from a small school the 3-4 posters who cry they aren’t worthy to play at Kentucky don’t have the first clue about basketball. Still brainwashed pining for the 5 stars that don’t care about UK and win nothing and shine a few years later in the NBA. Talent comes in many forms u can have it at 18 or u can have it at 23 after playing for 3 different small schools.
I was one of the biggest ones calling people (who said mid-major guys weren’t good enough for UK) out on this the past 3-5 years.
If you think about it we are now in more divisions than ever before.
Low and mid majors = lowest A ball division
Group of 5 = Double A
Power 5 = G league
Then you have the lower level NCAA, Division 2 / division 3 / NAIA.
Crazy but for about 40% of college athletes now student is totally forgotten. These guys and their Portal handlers, handlers, family are looking for paychecks. That is all. I understand. The player himself gets enough $$ he can always finish up school after playing and such. But it is very sad.
Low and mid majors = lowest A ball division
Group of 5 = Double A
Power 5 = G league
Then you have the lower level NCAA, Division 2 / division 3 / NAIA.
Crazy but for about 40% of college athletes now student is totally forgotten. These guys and their Portal handlers, handlers, family are looking for paychecks. That is all. I understand. The player himself gets enough $$ he can always finish up school after playing and such. But it is very sad.
I have been saying this since the 2016 season.
If Cal cared about winning titles, he would replicate his successful best teams.
2012 Team
2015 Team
The model for Cal's success was to have high profile freshman return for 2-3 years with having at least 1 star freshman.
He should have replicated those two team models.
I was flamed for it and no one ever wanted that to happen.
Now most of you posters who flamed me for seeing through Cal's BS are now seeing it.
If Cal cared about winning titles, he would replicate his successful best teams.
2012 Team
- Had key returnees in Jones and Lamb. Had a solid veteran with Miller
- Had once in a life time player in Davis
- Great role player freshman in Teague and MKG
2015 Team
- Twins, Johnson, WCS, Poythress and Lee came back
- Had a stellar freshman class with Ulis, Booker, Towns, Lyles
- Platooned
The model for Cal's success was to have high profile freshman return for 2-3 years with having at least 1 star freshman.
He should have replicated those two team models.
I was flamed for it and no one ever wanted that to happen.
Now most of you posters who flamed me for seeing through Cal's BS are now seeing it.
I don’t disagree. But, if those two games don’t happen he’s probably coaching here still. I mean those years were both top 10 regular seasons.
But regardless, the vile spewed at him the last 2-3 years has been ridiculous.
The biggest thing Cal didn’t adjust to was the premium the new game required of real life coaching.
I’m not trying to take a cheap shot either, I’m making a real point. With talent spread out more than ever, teaching and game coaching started making the difference in outcomes of games.
We can talk all day about how Cal’s roster management should have evolved but the truth is he had enough talent last year and even the years prior to make real runs in the tournament, we were just playing 6 points down to everybody else in grass roots coaching and games today are decided by that margin all the time.
It’s a coaches game now more than an recruiters.
It should’ve been telling to all of us after 2015, the team went 38-1, could’ve been 40-0, but Calipari said he wouldn’t do it anymore because it hurt recruiting. So getting the top players is more important than winning? But ofcourse he always made it clear, getting players to the NBA was most important. I wonder how many of his former players that are in or have been in the NBA wouldn’t have made it under a different coach?
