Hard to really get invested in a team that is this bad that we know is all going to bolt after the season.
There's three arms to this thing in my mind.
1. Regular season
2. Returning guys to build an experienced/successful team.
3. NCAA tournament
We've been sacrificing 1 and 2 in the name of 3 for most of the past decade. And that's great...so long as we actually succeed at 3. I don't have to have a Final 4 every year. No one does. It's not possible or realistic. But, the system is designed such that we sacrifice the rest in the name of March success. We keep tolerating bad starts and total new teams every year--in the name of March success.
If we got multiple returnees and we had teams with multiple juniors and seniors--I'd forgive the bad regular seasons or lack of Final 4's.
But instead we're failing at all 3 arms. The freshmen aren't the elite freshmen of old. Ben Simmons proved you can go to LSU and go #1. Anthony Edwards proved you can go to Georgia and go #1. We're getting less and less top recruits. And we have a bunch of freshmen that aren't ready/don't know how to play organized basketball.
So we suffer through the regular season. The whole time thinking that we'll be good come March. It happened in 2011 and 2014 when everyone counted us out. Cal will have these boys ready. We forget losing to Indiana in the 2nd round or K-State in the Sweet 16.
Then we won't even make a Final 4, let alone win it all. We'll lose all 5 starters. Maybe 1 or 2 bench guys come back. Other will transfer because they didn't get PT or feel they're being recruited over. We'll get another top recruiting class that doesn't know how to play organized basketball. And we'll start the process all over.
We keep recruiting these kids on our ability to get them to the NBA. We've become the NBA pipeline. And that's the only way kids will see us as long as Cal is here. That's his best recruiting pitch. The kids we're appealing to are kids that want to go pro as fast as they can. We recruit 4 stars hoping they'll stay. But, if Kentucky's recruiting them--that must mean Cal thinks they're good enough to go pro after a year. Why else would they come to Kentucky?
We're having success in zero of the three arms. The system is failing. Something has to change.
There's three arms to this thing in my mind.
1. Regular season
2. Returning guys to build an experienced/successful team.
3. NCAA tournament
We've been sacrificing 1 and 2 in the name of 3 for most of the past decade. And that's great...so long as we actually succeed at 3. I don't have to have a Final 4 every year. No one does. It's not possible or realistic. But, the system is designed such that we sacrifice the rest in the name of March success. We keep tolerating bad starts and total new teams every year--in the name of March success.
If we got multiple returnees and we had teams with multiple juniors and seniors--I'd forgive the bad regular seasons or lack of Final 4's.
But instead we're failing at all 3 arms. The freshmen aren't the elite freshmen of old. Ben Simmons proved you can go to LSU and go #1. Anthony Edwards proved you can go to Georgia and go #1. We're getting less and less top recruits. And we have a bunch of freshmen that aren't ready/don't know how to play organized basketball.
So we suffer through the regular season. The whole time thinking that we'll be good come March. It happened in 2011 and 2014 when everyone counted us out. Cal will have these boys ready. We forget losing to Indiana in the 2nd round or K-State in the Sweet 16.
Then we won't even make a Final 4, let alone win it all. We'll lose all 5 starters. Maybe 1 or 2 bench guys come back. Other will transfer because they didn't get PT or feel they're being recruited over. We'll get another top recruiting class that doesn't know how to play organized basketball. And we'll start the process all over.
We keep recruiting these kids on our ability to get them to the NBA. We've become the NBA pipeline. And that's the only way kids will see us as long as Cal is here. That's his best recruiting pitch. The kids we're appealing to are kids that want to go pro as fast as they can. We recruit 4 stars hoping they'll stay. But, if Kentucky's recruiting them--that must mean Cal thinks they're good enough to go pro after a year. Why else would they come to Kentucky?
We're having success in zero of the three arms. The system is failing. Something has to change.