Several on here complained about Cal losing recruits to other schools. As all this new information comes out, a couple of things stick out. First, Cal lost some recruits that had their hand out, and they took the money, as opposed to coming to UK. Second, Cal steered away from recruits that had their hand out, and wouldn't play that game, keeping the program out of trouble. Remember Cal mysteriously dropping the recruitment of Ayton, when we had been mentioned as the leader for him? We probably lost Bagley because of the reclassification, but, who knows about any funny dealings there, since Capel is known to have played fast and loose with the cash, at Oklahoma. Thing is, Cal hasn't slipped at all. He is running a clean program, and some of these top targets went for the money. Now that everyone is going to be under the microscope, watch and see if Cal's recruiting doesn't vault right back to the top. Glad we have him, and I can't think of another coach I would trade him for.
Cal's Recruiting
- Thread starter Ben101er
- Start date
Terrance Jones flipped really late in his recruitment. Marquis Teague was solid uofl then flipped. IMO none of these coaches are clean. Everyone wants to point the finger at others and convince themselves they are clean.
Kind of makes me think foootball is much worse. I remember uofl coming off a last place finish in the big east then all of the sudden Clint hurt comes to town from a crooked Miami program and brings teddy bridgewater Eli Rodgers and others along with him.
Kind of makes me think foootball is much worse. I remember uofl coming off a last place finish in the big east then all of the sudden Clint hurt comes to town from a crooked Miami program and brings teddy bridgewater Eli Rodgers and others along with him.
This thought has been discussed on here quite a bit lately, and I agree with this 100%
I honestly had thought this before this stuff came out, but wasn't sure HOW agents and AAU guys were doing it.
I'd STILL rather us only get a few OAD's a year and fill out the roster with multi-year players and a few Kentucky born kids...
I honestly had thought this before this stuff came out, but wasn't sure HOW agents and AAU guys were doing it.
I'd STILL rather us only get a few OAD's a year and fill out the roster with multi-year players and a few Kentucky born kids...
Honestly, I DO think that UK is clean...
Barnhardt WOULD NOT tolerate cheating, and if we WERE cheating, he'd clean house IMMEDIATELY!
Teague was never a solid UL lean. That was a BIG assumption because dad played for Pitino. Teague's brother pushed Cal/UK the whole time.
Rick told Teague's dad to not even talk to Cal because someone would eventually offer illegal things. Teague's dad said he was skeptical & that the first sign of anything shady he would be finished with Cal. To his surprise he said Cal had the most real, straight up approach of any coach that offered Teague & that it won him over.
Jones was a UK lean from the first time he & his family sat with Cal. He was under tremendous pressure from locals (not family but peers & school administrators etc.)to stay home & play at Washington.
Why do we need a few from KY? I am from little ole Elliott County myself and love it when UK brings in a KY recruit. But only if they're worthy of playing here. Otherwise they are 4 year cheerleaders. JMO.
Why do you assume everyone is guilty EXCEPT Kentucky? Then go on to say that why UK has not recruited as well. UK was listed in the probe as well. You kind of lose credibility with this thinking. Most likely only a couple of the programs or players are truly guilty... Arizona and Dennis Smith cough*
Anyways the facts are that Cal has outrecruited every single program except maybe Duke. UK has been very very successful in everything from wins, media coverage, to recruiting. Cal has only been "outrecruited" if you are staring only at Duke constantly.
Define clean.
Clean as in "not making direct payments to players and their families"? Then yeah, I think UK is clean, probably Duke and UNC too.
But clean as in "no player in the program or their families is receiving money from an agent or a shoe company"?
I don't think anyone is clean with that. Not UK, not Duke, not anyone else in the upper echelon of college sports. Recruiting on a national level is based almost entirely around the shoe/apparel companies, and they're also the ones putting millions of dollars in high-profile coaches' pockets. Do you really think those same coaches are going to dig into the details of what those shoe companies are doing?
I think big-time college sports is 100% a culture of "look the other way", and I don't think many coaches or administrators particularly care unless things get totally egregious. The sausage tastes good, and it sells really well, so don't ask for all the details of how it's made.
This point never gets much traction, but I will try again . . .
on the morning of the Zion announcement, Cal commented on Gameday that he missed working with the high school coaches. He spoke fondly of the old days, when you built relationships through high school coaches and learned about players through people that you knew and had strong relationships with. He mentioned 5-star camp in Pittsburgh as one of the gathering spots.
Cal knows that this business is now over-run with thugs. (AAU, agents, handlers, etc.)
Personally, I don't think Cal cheats. Has he played players at UK who have received benefits from third-parties? Sure. His comments to Farnham on Saturday seem to indicate that he's aware of that possibility, but doesn't believe coaches should be held accountable (and I agree with him).
But again, it goes back to him saying publicly that he doesn't like the current system. And less than 12 hours later, Zion joins the "brotherhood".
Just a few weeks later, Forde/Thamel release their story.
on the morning of the Zion announcement, Cal commented on Gameday that he missed working with the high school coaches. He spoke fondly of the old days, when you built relationships through high school coaches and learned about players through people that you knew and had strong relationships with. He mentioned 5-star camp in Pittsburgh as one of the gathering spots.
Cal knows that this business is now over-run with thugs. (AAU, agents, handlers, etc.)
Personally, I don't think Cal cheats. Has he played players at UK who have received benefits from third-parties? Sure. His comments to Farnham on Saturday seem to indicate that he's aware of that possibility, but doesn't believe coaches should be held accountable (and I agree with him).
But again, it goes back to him saying publicly that he doesn't like the current system. And less than 12 hours later, Zion joins the "brotherhood".
Just a few weeks later, Forde/Thamel release their story.
One poster is mysteriously absent since all this broke. He pounded the table calling many UK fans "sheep" and called for Sandy Bell to be fired for not letting us take more chances on recruits...... Too dang funny.
Clean as in, UK not orchestrating or having any knowledge of wrong doing...
UK can't prevent kids from taking money, but I don't think that Cal or his assistants are doing anything wrong.
That's as clean as a school can get these days.
Every year, there are at least one or two Kentucky kids who end up being excellent college players.
It's more about recruiting role players with great enthusiasm accepting a limited role.
That type of player is a great asset when developing team chemistry.
I think Cal tries to get some multi-year players, but, when you get some, like Wiltjer, or Matthews, they transfer, because they keep getting recruited over. That is a problem with the OAD system, and getting great classes, each year.
Cal is the reason most of these schools had to start cheating, specifically Louisville and Pitino. I think Miller was clean prior to Arizona, he just got out there being the only big school around besides UCLA and being the big nike school out west, put him in the path of alot of handlers and people he should not of been dealing with and he just eventually got in over his head. A school i am totally surprised to not hear about yet is Baylor, alot of recruits that went there have been shady including Perry jones, Quincy Miller, Bello and several more.
Exactly. There is no way to know if a kid has taken money from an agent, but, unlike some of the other programs we have lost recruits to, UK has not offered money to steer them to Lexington.
You are speaking the truth. Lee Todd hired Barnhart to clean house. That's exactly why the old guard boosters and their Greek chorus in our fan base passionately hate Barnhart. When Calipari was hired, the deal was clear. UK is compliant with NCAA rules, and Calipari agreed to live here as a good citizen in our campus culture. He has done that. It's pretty easy to see that Calipari has backed away from a number of problematic athletes in recent years. UK's public statement said no current players or coaches are implicated. Statements like that don't get issued unless UK's general counsel is sure. The thing with Nerlens and Bam is just about a couple of entries on a ledger regarding small loans. Agents loan money to professional athletes all the time. The FBI investigation isn't about loans to professional athletes. Everything I have seen tells me that UK is clean.
And I would support him, if we were cheating.
Until then, I would say we are fine.
I think Cal & UK is clean (not paying for players) because they are under the microscope by the NCAA probably more than any other school because we know the NCAA has it out for Cal & UK both. Now what some players get before they ever pick a school should not be held against the college they finally pick to play for.
We should be thankful we have Sandy Bell at UK. Don't know the lady but from everything i have heard or read she goes by the book. I really be glad when all of this is over and done with.
We should be thankful we have Sandy Bell at UK. Don't know the lady but from everything i have heard or read she goes by the book. I really be glad when all of this is over and done with.
But he doesn't have to be from any particular state to be that type of player. Cameron Mills was from KY but he had the ability to contribute. Jeff Shepherd was from Georgia but bled blue. JMO
The guys you're talking about may or may not view themselves as role players and thus don't want to go to a uk when they can go to a Butler and average 25+min a game from the word go
Not sure if anyone has noticed but this whole FBI investigation started around the time of our loss to Wisconsin in the Final Four in 2015. After that game, we have seen our program lose recruits we were favored for and the parity in college basketball as well as the recruiting trends have shifted drastically. Maybe it's possible that other coaches felt pressured to start working extra hard behind the scenes in order to assure that their team had a chance at some high level recruits and Kentucky didn't have two top 25 squads on the roster platooning in and out. Probably not likely since this sort of thing has been going on for so long but it's fun to think that the coaches caught up in the pay for play were doing it in order to keep from becoming irrelevant from Calipari and Kentucky's dominance in recruiting and on the court.
It's been clear, even before now, that Calipari keeps away from the "problem" recruits and the kinds of kids/players we want to end up here generally do (a.k.a. Fox, Davis, Ulis, etc, etc.) I believe Calipari's recruiting approach to these players was "look, I understand that there is money floating around out there and agents pushing to get you to a certain school. While this may look appealing in the present time, this will hurt your potential earnings in the future if you ever get caught taking any of these benefits along with the negative publicity that comes with all of that. If you come to Kentucky, you'll learn the game of basketball from a hall of fame coach, I'll put you in a position to get the most media coverage and publicity in the country, and I'll go to hell and back for you to help you reach your goals, but you must be willing to put all the BS that is currently being thrown at you aside and understand that I can help you make more money in the long run and have no worries about getting caught up in a shady coaches/universities dealings."
I think the NBA could care less if a player took money in HS or college. They are about drafting the best athlete. I think if a player has trouble with the law that plays into his draft status but I believe they do not care if the player or family was paid.
It's not a coincidence that Cal's recruiting slipped the second other schools/agents/companies started getting fishy. The timelines align very well.
You don't put guys in the NBA like Cal did from '09 to '15 just to wake up one day and have many of these recruits become uninterested. The dude had his pick for many of those years and he was turning guys AWAY at times. If he WAS paying players back then, well, he wouldn't have all the sudden stopped, would he?
You don't lose your spot as the top salesman, or top performer, unless something external was happening..
You don't put guys in the NBA like Cal did from '09 to '15 just to wake up one day and have many of these recruits become uninterested. The dude had his pick for many of those years and he was turning guys AWAY at times. If he WAS paying players back then, well, he wouldn't have all the sudden stopped, would he?
You don't lose your spot as the top salesman, or top performer, unless something external was happening..
Puleeze. T Jones was on the phone to Cal right after committing to Washington saying he regretted it. Teague just made a smart decision.
I'll admit I was wrong if it comes out that Cal has been up to something but we have the biggest microscope on us and our compliance staff is obviously some of the best in the nation.
Why cheat when you can show a track record of putting guys into the NBA and getting second contracts based on your play during the first?
Where was UK listed?
Players were listed:
Knox - free meal, big deal
Noel - after he left UK and went pro
Bam - before UK was even a player and the money went to an influencer. Shown as bad loan now because you can't collect on money that never made it to the money maker.
I was referring to potential earnings as in you have the opportunity to brand yourself to a higher degree if you choose Kentucky over Miami (Lonnie Walker) or Texas (Mo Bamba) or Washington (Markelle Fultz). These players will never reach the potential they could have reached because they opted for the money instead of being pushed and broken down by Coach Cal to become a more well rounded basketball player PLUS human being (Coach Cal doesn't just teach basketball). I also ran a regression for my Economics project during my time at my respective university. In the regression, it proved that since Coach Cal has been the coach at Kentucky, our players are drafted 5 spots higher in the draft compared to going to a different school (even a different blue blood). The higher you go in the draft, the more your first contract is. Choosing a school based on cash and handlers instead of making a choice for the benefit and betterment of your game and as a person will absolutely affect your potential earnings down the road.
I'm sure there are plenty who'd be glad to go the route of Derek Willis or Dom Hawkins.
Kentucky kids would probably be more anxious to fill that role.
BTW...I've never been one of those saying "we need Kentucky kids".
Personally, I don't care WHERE they're from if they can play.
I'm just getting tired of TOO MUCH roster turnover, and feel we need to always keep some kids on the roster who can add stability and enthusiasm.
Thankfully, we are setting ourselves up for a good 2-3 years of some of the least roster turnover we've had. There's no scenario where we don't have a handful of Sophomores and a junior or two next season. The same will happen the following season, too.
Maybe Cal switched it up, maybe he sees the writing on the wall when it comes to top10 players and the NBA. Maybe he knows that these kids have this "I can play anywhere and still be great" attitude and he needed to ensure he's got some holdovers, in case he strikes out on a particular class.
Next year is gonna be a lot of fun. I don't see Kentucky losing many games to mistakes and youth like we did this year.
Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. I love my home state of Kentucky, but I love the United States Of America too. It's all good!
Hell, I've tried to @ him, I don't see his username anywhere? Did he disappear? Anyone seen him? Or am I just dumb?
Pitino hired someone close to Teague I thought and everyone assumed he was going there. That's the way I remember it.
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