Seniors are dominating the sport.

[fatguy87]

Upperclassman have always been better than freshmen. This isn't a new phenomena. The recent eligibility considerations due to covid might have exacerbated the skill discrepancy, however, while the portal/NIL hijinks have highlighted it. There are good upperclassman all over the country. They don't have high NBA prospects, but they are better at 23 than a 18 year old future pro.

In any given year, there are a small handful of freshman who are as good as older players. Cal did a great job acquiring these select few freshmen and integrating them into a coherent system. That was almost 10 years ago though. The meta has changed.

 

[Padsfs07]

Problem is. When UK gets Freshmen instead keeping them 4 years like places like Kansas does.
Cal pushes them out the door to the NBA ready or not. The ones that don't go to the NBA transfer due to another class of 5 stars coming. They know even if they are the better player they won't get playing time due to promises made to the 5 stars.

Self has consistently gotten 4 star recruits - Mason, Mykhailiuk, Graham, Garrett, Braun, Agbaji, McCormack, Vick, Lightfoot, Harris, Wilson, and Adams - to stay, by getting them to buy in, even when they aren't playing.

However, he hasn't sustained this over the last 3 years, other than KJ Adams. All of his underclassmen are leaving. They lost 5 to transfer after 20/21, and 7 to transfer after 22/23.

 

[kennyskywalker34]

Self has consistently gotten 4 star recruits - Mason, Mykhailiuk, Graham, Garrett, Braun, Agbaji, McCormack, Vick, Lightfoot, Harris, Wilson, and Adams - to stay, by getting them to buy in, even when they aren't playing.

However, he hasn't sustained this over the last 3 years, other than KJ Adams. All of his underclassmen are leaving. They lost 5 to transfer after 20/21, and 7 to transfer after 22/23.

They still regularly field a team that wins more games than Kentucky.
Without looking I'll guess 2015 is the last year UK won more games than they did. Possibly the Fox Bam Monk year was the last.
Whichever it's been too long.
I'm not saying UK should win more games every year than Kansas. But they shouldn't be losing more than them for several consecutive years either.

 

[OmahaCats]

Covid has a lot to do with this. In about 2 years when all that COVID eligibility is gone, it’ll go down some. You have 25 year olds out there