Ive said this already.. I dont think it's that easy. Not every 3-star wants to come to Kentucky for what would likely be time spent on the bench. I'm not even sure what type of rapport Calipari has with 3-star players. Imagine what his pitch would be in April of this year:
"Hey guy-I-would-never-normally-recruit and dont really know, how would you like to decommit from your current school and possibly, maybe, get 12 minutes a game if you're really really really good? And for added pressure, i have 7 five star players coming in next year, so better start practicing!"
We just arent a 3-star school. You cant be when you're a 5-star school. These two types of recruiting models cant coexist. The only exception are instate 3-stars who love Kentucky so much they are fine sacraficing playing time. How do so many of our fans not get this?
Because they only think about the best of all players from outside the top 100, and only after they've proven themselves to be the best of that (enormous) group.
Here are the non 5 star players Duke has signed this decade. I'd love to hear which ones UK should have been interested in:
Josh Hairston, Tyler Thornton, Michael Gbinije, Marhall Plumlee, Quinn Cook, Alex Murphy, Amile Jefferson, Matt Jones, Semi Ojeleye, Luke Kennard, Antonio Vrankovic, Javin DeLaurier, Jack White, Jordan Tucker, Alex O'Connell, Jordan Goldwire, Joey Baker, and Cassius Stanley.
The best guys in that group are guys that UK did recruit. Other than that, there are a lot of guys who ended up transferring, and not a lot of guys that you say "oh, yeah, he could have been a key part of a title team as an upperclassman".
UNC has gotten a lot of mileage out of 4 stars, but it's a legit question whether that was on purpose, or because the 5 stars they were pulling in by the bundle 10-20 years ago suddenly all ended up at UK and Duke. As for 3 stars, these are the guys they signed:
Desmond Hubert, Jackson Simmons, Stilman White, and Sterling Manley. That's it. Even Luke Maye was a 4 star, granted, a lower rated one, but hey, if some former UK football player has a 6'8" son who's a low 4 star, I'll be all for signing him up.
As for Kansas, Frank Mason, Hell yeah. And Jamari Traylor, Mervyn Lindsay, Anrio Adams, and Zach Peters.