Not even close to the reason.
He has a very strong relationship w Shaka.
That won out.
Bamba to Texas
- Thread starter christian28
- Start date
Not even close to the reason.
He has a very strong relationship w Shaka.
That won out.
No it didn't.
I posted a while ago that Shaka and Texas were gaining steam. It has nothing to do with Diallo or any supposed fan backlash. He and the family were very, very comfortable w Shaka.
Lol.
That's not why Simmons went to lsu, not why bamba chose Texas.
Fwiw, the latter's recruitment was clean.
Lol. Dean Smith won 2 in 40+ years, first one wasn't until his 21st year but he had some guy named Michael Jordan so it doesn't count, 2nd was until like year 34, Rick- year 18 with the greatest team ever with nine pros, 2nd not until yr 31 in college ..coach k first one in year 16 but it doesn't count apparently, because he had Laettner the best player in college and greatest college basketball player of all time, and he had him for 4 years, along with Hurley and grant hill..so guess we need to erase it. cals first one in 21st year in college..but then again I guess everyone should be hanging tons of banners in 8 years at umass because we've seen coaches take teams that have never been to a ncaa post season before do it all the time.
No one apparently knows how to coach or what their doing. Hard to ignore all those elephants
Did you really think Bamba was that big of a difference maker that our entire season hinged on him or do you just think that little of all the McDonalds All Americans we have?
I think some fans just don't put a premium on championships like other Uk fans. They see winning alot of games and sniffing a final 4 as a fine consolation prize.
It's like some people are fine with silver while others are seeking gold.
Correct, I do believe he would go higher in the draft with the name Kentucky on his resume, I guess he figures a couple of spots won't hurt him. It still hard to believe that with all of the positives of going to Kentucky and all of his friends in his ear for 6 months to go along with Cal's record of Putting bigs in the NBA he would not want to come here. If he had signed with Kentucky he would have a chance to play for the national championship, Kentucky will be there question is will Texas.
I don't think people put less emphasis on it but rather some realize just how hard it is to win titles.
A team makes the final four. Disappointing they didn't win it all? Sure of course. Is the season considered a failure? Nah.
Rivals #5 Marquis Teague did but nobody on the planet is trading him for Wall, Ulis or Fox.
Maybe following an ACC program will get you more Teague's and championships then.
Last edited:
This class will win the title next season. We have all the pieces to do it with, Bamba will be an afterthought!
I can't really go back and find a good spot to jump in on this discussion. So I'll just start here.
I completely agree with this assessment. I went and pulled the numbers earlier today and almost posted the exact same comment. I would have extended Cal's recuiting zenith to the 2013 class.
UK and Calipari are doing fine bringing in top classes filled with 5* players. But not all 5* are built the same. We need the elite of the elite. In Calipari's first 5 classes 2009-13 he had a top-3 player every year and two top-7 players (sometimes 3).
2009 - Wall #1, Cousins #3
2010 - Kanter #3, and Knight #6
2011 - Davis #1, MKG #3, and Teague #5
2012 - Noel #1 and Poythress #7
2013 - Randle #2, Andrew #5 and Dakari #7
Since 2013 we have only had one top-3 player, and that was Skal. We have done well in the 6-10 players, and sometimes those guys outplay the higher ranked guys (Towns, Fox, Monk) but we have been missing on the top players in the class.
As for what needs to change? Two things I can see happening in the near future. One has already happened with Cal taking on the coaching responsibilities with the Team USA U-19 team. That should pay off immediate dividends with this next class. The other thing is that Orlando Antigua will be brought back into the fold as soon as Barbee or Payne moves on.
I agree that its dang hard to win championship, but I got to agree with morg that if you are serious bout titles you have to get a few of the absolute best if you're going to be this young every year.
Sad to say this may be true. I said more than once that some one was gonna use this against us. We were bashing one of his friends for doing what he told us he was gonna do
I think Antigua is missed more than we know, but I do have to wonder if he'd ever leave illinois to come back to Ky
It is pretty interesting seeing Cal miss on the elite of the elite guys when he's such an ace recruiter. Maybe those guys feel like they don't need Kentucky to help them boost their draft stock and just want to hide out for a year. Cal has done an amazing job with that 5-15 range though and getting the most out of guys like Booker and Ulis.
I can't find any solid numbers on Antigua's salary at Illinois. In some ways it may not matter because he is getting paid from USF as part of their buyout, and typically the buyout is reduced by any salary you take on.
However, the best numbers I could find showed that Groce's assistants made around $150k. Kenny Payne is being paid $775k. USF is paying him around $900k this year and next year.... so Coach O will be fine salary-wise, at least until the 2020 season. My guess is he likes making money, and he can make more at UK, so I tend to think he would come back.
Idea for made for TV:
UK versus Texas in this years SEC-Big-12 match up? I think ratings would be much higher for that game instead of UK versus West Virginia.
Besides WV seems to always be available in NCAA versus UK. Texas even with Bamba may struggle to reach the NIT. Thoughts?
UK versus Texas in this years SEC-Big-12 match up? I think ratings would be much higher for that game instead of UK versus West Virginia.
Besides WV seems to always be available in NCAA versus UK. Texas even with Bamba may struggle to reach the NIT. Thoughts?
Who's to say we didn't?
Rankings are just projections. They are making a guess on how good they will be based on what they did up to that point.
Maybe Cal didn't miss out on Top 5 players. Maybe Cal went after the players in his Top 5 instead
It's no coincidence Cal has been dying to get the USA Coach position. He's been losing guys to K and now Smart because of it.
More power to him. That still doesn't mean he wouldn't have been better prepared for his rookie season if he had gone somewhere where he would have been pushed. And had he done that, he could have actually been part of a winning team. But as I said before, I guess for some kids, winning just isn't that important.
I'm not wanting to get into it with you again, but did you read the list of reasons he gave? He's simply comfortable there. There are other factors, obviously, but making that unfounded claim is as silly as me saying he obviously doesn't like blue and white. He ignored UK, Duke, UNC and KU. Thats pretty credible.
I don't think he likes sharing the spotlight which is probably why he waited so long to commit. Much less pressure and he probably believes his name is big enough to help his brand without UK. He even stated in his reasoning that it was pretty much all about Shaka saying he gave him a "week long interview" in the U18 games.
It is unlikely that a small group of fans bashing Diallo had any affect at all.
We have an Elite rim protector in Richards. Would have been nice to have Bamba too but our team is more than ready.
well, to be fair... didn't the ESPN headline last week say "Knox Chooses UK over K"?
The last nine years (since Cal has been at UK) There have been 6 occasions a single team gets two Top 5 players....UK 3 times, Duke twice and UCLA once. You could not be any more wrong in your assessment considering we have had more success than ANY OTHER PROGRAM, not only since Cal got here, but since 2013 where we have made an Elite Eight, 38-1 Final Four season and a National Title game. You are one of the crazys that think if we don't cut down the nets every two years then we have failed.
The good thing about a class as big as this years is that we will not lose as high of a percentage to the draft.
I will agree to a point. I don't think Cal is looking simply at rankings with these kids and we've seen plenty of absolute misses in the rankings with many players. I think Cal is going after specific players for specific reasons. Like Bamba, we don't always get them, but I don't think Cal is necessarily going after guys because they are top 5 or top 10.
Can someone explain Bamba's high school stats to me? I'd never bothered looking until today but I would have assumed he would have fantastic numbers, at least for rebounding and blocks. If what I found is correct, his numbers are pretty pedestrian.