I don't believe that either. Last year was a one time deal. We're not going to start 38-0 again. So will players stop going to duke? They get 4 burger boys every year and sick out loud 4 of every 5 years (lose in 1st round to mid majors while getting to the championship game has been the average result for us under Cal).Exactly! MJ is OK, but he just expressed an opinion without any real reason and did it when he was coming off an event filled weekend trying to give his readers some explanation of why we struck out. But like you, I don't believe for a minute any of those recruits that stiff armed us had much fear about playing time after losing 7 players to the draft. And like you, I do believe the real reason lies in the image of Kentucky that has developed over the last couple of years. I hear it over and over (at least the people in Cincy that are around me) that Kentucky is a bunch of losers that can't even win when they have everything - Size, talent, depth, MickyD's, All Americans, a team full of NBA players etc, etc etc. It's no fun trying to argue that point to a bunch of BeraCats and Musketeers at this point in time. That is (at least in part) the reason the recruits are not interested, but Matt can't write that kind of stuff without irritating his audience. Just like my comments do to the Kentucky fans here.
The bottom line is, right now our biggest needs are a wing and a backup center.
Ingram was never leaving NC.
Brown has bizarre school criteria ( I think it could be argued that uk, Kansas and Michigan were all better choices than cal).
Diallo and Zimmerman don't want to have to compete with three other elite players for pt.
Newman wasn't going to play on the ball.
That's why we are where we are.