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Trae Young was very close to going to Kentucky

Young is shooting a good % (47.6%, 37.9%, 88.9%). So far Young has averaged 18.0 FG attempts, and 9.0 3pt-attempts per game.

In Cal's tenure, our maximum's have been:
FGA/gm:
Murray 14.9
Monk 14.7
Knight 13.5
Fox 12.4

3ptA/gm:
Murray 7.7
Monk 6.9
Knight 6.1
J.Young 5.9

He wanted lots of shots!

Monk shot pretty much whenever he wanted too, which was fine with me but damn. Three more a game than him. Hes james harden in college for sure. Harden is awesome but I have never seen anyone have the ball so much beside westbrook last year.
 
When we had Tubby and a guy like Young fooled everyone by going elsewhere it could be devastating. With Cal it's the players loss not ours. Young' s experience will be nothing like it would have been at Kentucky and we have a great recruit in his position.
 
People also have to remember that UK needed a big class in regards to simple numbers more than usual. So Calipari did have to balance that. So who knows, if it was a year where we needed to not replace the entire team, he would be fine with Young.
 
Uhh...pretty sure most players we've recruited drag their decision out...
Did Quickley? If Young had signed when Quickley, Bol, Reddish did this year he would have been a Cat and we would have never been interested in Green. But he wanted to be one of the last players to commit in his class for the spotlight and Cal wasn't going to take that risk and wait till the bitter end for his PG when he knew Green would sign earlier. Didn't hurt Diallo, Bamba, & Knox all loved Green but if Young signed during the early period last year he is our PG this year.
 
And he did kill us with his shooting in the NCAA championship game. imo
No.

And not only because we didn't make the championship game that year.

In our FF game vs. enventual champion UCONN,

Knight did take more than his usual number of shots.
And he did hit below his usual percentage.

But none of that had bupkiss to do with Knight doing anything to hurt us.

Josh got slapped with two fouls in the first few minutes of that game. As a result Cal yanked him out to have him available at crunch time. But Cal got nervous and didn't put him back in until much too late.

As a result, UCONN was able to double-team Terrence Jones all game and neutralize our post offense. We were running a fair amount of DDM that year. But we were running it off spacing we were getting from BK and Josh being able to switch places since either could become an outside threat or score inside (Josh scoring inside with post moves, Knight slipping inside with a drive he was pretty good at finishing while you had to worry about him dishing off to either Josh or TJ). With Josh gone that long against a team with such high powered guards as UCONN had, both our penetration and our old fashioned post options bogged down. The bulk of our offense had to come from the perimeter. We did the best we could but it wasn't enough (wasn't that bad--we lost by a point--just wasn't enough). It was hard scoring from the perimeter against a FF team who had next-level guard play AND didn't have to guard you much inside.

None of that was Knight's fault. Sure it would have been groovy if he could have pulled an insane on fire Meeks/Monk hot streak night out of his ass and saved the day for us. But he hardly killed us just because he wasn't able to go quite that inhumanly far to help us that night.
 
If he can help OU win the B12 and stop KUs streak I'll be glad he went there. Otherwise I wish we had him. I like Green, glad we have him, and he may be more of a leader, but Young is a talent much like Knight, and we all know how far he helped take us.
 
We took Quade Green. Kids in this class didn't want to play with Young, so Cal went in another direction. Otherwise, Knox and Diallo probably wouldn't be here, and Quade also gave us a better shot at Bamba.

There are so many moving parts to recruiting that it's amazing Cal is able to rebuild an entire roster every season at all, much less to do so at an elite level.

Yet another "hear-say" comment that gets passed as fact and truth on here. "Kids in the class didn't want to play with him so Cal went in another direction". Been reading this board for years and it's the most predictable mode of operating on here. It's just like the old "Cal doesn't push them out, he gives them feedback and let's them make their own decisions". Yet no one really knows but it continues to get passed as truth and fact.

Or "Cal doesn't promise recruits anything", yet another rumor that no one really knows what Cal says in his pitch.

Or how about "Cal planned the whole thing" etc etc haha it's freaking amazing.
 
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According to this story he was very close to going to Kentucky.

"He was going to Kentucky or Kansas," Ray Young said. "It wasn't even that big of a debate for a while. Once he got the offer from Kentucky, it's like, 'Dad, Coach (John) Calipari just left our house.' I would never say it was a done deal because we really liked Coach (Bill) Self a lot, and being around the coaches at Oklahoma and Coach Kruger, but there was no way he was not going to go to Kentucky, for about six or eight months. That's the thing people don't understand. He really wanted to go there but things didn't work out."

Full story
Non-story. This doesn't need any traction. The kid chose Oklahoma and is playing well but let Sooner Nation put him in the headlines.
 
Yet another "hear-say" comment that gets passed as fact and truth on here. "Kids in the class didn't want to play with him so Cal went in another direction". Been reading this board for years and it's the most predictable mode of operating on here. It's just like the old "Cal doesn't push them out, he gives them feedback and let's them make their own decisions". Yet no one really knows but it continues to get passed as truth and fact.

Or "Cal doesn't promise recruits anything", yet another rumor that no one really knows what Cal says in his pitch.

Or how about "Cal planned the whole thing" etc etc haha it's freaking amazing.
That’s a two edge sword. All those things could be true as well. As you said we don’t truly know.

Most elite players do not want to play with a ball hog. Many actually want to be the ball hog and Cal has got those that are willing to play together to come to UK.
 
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When we had Tubby and a guy like Young fooled everyone by going elsewhere it could be devastating. With Cal it's the players loss not ours. Young' s experience will be nothing like it would have been at Kentucky and we have a great recruit in his position.
Yeah, Youngs experience at Oklahoma appears to be awful. I bet he cries himself to sleep every night.
 
Well he didn't come here, so who cares? He's happy at OU where he can take 25 shots a game on an ok team, and we will be just fine making a tournament run without him.


You are closer to the truth than many know......he just wasn't a kid that would fit in with the players we have......he probably did demand that he get to take a bunch of shots per game.
 
In the end he made the best choice for him and it has worked out perfectly because he was not on the nba radar as a first round or one and done player. Now he’s slowly creeping into the lotto and his stock is high.
 
No offense, but I would never put Lon Kruger and great coach in adjoining sentences.


When I read that statement I started scratching my head......? I didn't remember Kruger being that great.....I checked his head coaching records. It looks like his overall winning percentage is just over 61%. so, for OU that is great....ha, ha!
 
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Exactly. Not sure why some don’t like the truth. Instead it makes hem feel better to say “the parent didn’t like UK” or “he told Cal he wanted a bunch of shots” or money or some insane thing. Like Cal said “UK isn’t for everyone” and it doesn’t appeal to every single top kid as fans think it should.

It’s the same for Duke, UNC, Kansas. Every top recruit doesn’t want to go to those schools, most do want to be recruited by those schools though


I think many are overplaying the notion "nobody wanted to play with him and Cal moved to Quade".

It seems pretty obvious Cal wanted Young first and it simply was Young didn't want to verbal that quickly and eventually Cal just moved to second option in Quade Green who didn't wait to verbal.
 
Really Keyser, you think attending a basketball program like Oklahoma is anything like being part of the University of Kentucky's program? Oh yeah, I forgot about the Big Red Nation following of basketball.
 
Young made the best choice for him, and they’re 7-1 and not ranked. Hate to see that Green didn’t equate into Bamba too, but we’ll be there in the end competing for the last 2 weeks of the season. You probably won’t see that at Oklahoma or Texas.

Young’s NBA future might depend on how he does against Sexton/Bama on 1/27. He’s mid round right now.
 
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