Kentucky Basketball: How the Media Fails to Understand Early Entry

of a large fraction of the College Basketball landscape. Where did it come from? I remember when we beat the Huskies back in the 1985 NCAAs in Salt Lake, there was no rancor. Now there is, Why? The answer is ‘recruiting.’ Coach Lorenzo Lomar has elevated the basketball program at Washington and brought – hope! – and the Kentucky Wildcats in the person of John Calipari ripped it away.

The swooping capture of prospects Terrence Jones and Enes Kanter from the Washington Huskies is prototypical recruiting by Calipari and has been since he established himself as an upwardly mobile assistant coach by raiding recruits coveted by big time programs. In addition to Romar, coaches like Bobby Knight, Jim Calhoun, Jim Boeheim, and Gary Williams have felt the pain of having top talent ripped from their grasp and they unabashedly hate Calipari for what they view as his predatory recruiting.

Let’s be clear, these Hall of Fame coaches couldn’t care less about vacated final fours, graduation rates, or NBA job prospects. They hate Calipari for pulling out all the stops all the time to snatch away prized recruits to their intense public embarrassment and the resulting disruption to their programs. One famous incident occurred while Calipari was at the University of Pittsburgh, he apparently told blue-chip recruit Marvin Branch that committing to St. John’s was futile because their head coach, Lou Carnesecca, was dying of cancer – which apparently was news to Lou. Calipari’s recruiting tactics have matured over the years but are obviously no less effective.

We ’CAT fans take certain pride in the recruiting prowess of our coach and we should. But, the knowledge that top level college recruiting is a rough and tumble winner-take-all game played by big boys is no solace to the victimized fans and media who cover these programs who feel the void left in their hopes and dreams from losing a top prospect. The bad feelings, nay, outright hate, losing 5-star prospects engenders is pervasive, we ourselves were subject to it watching Duke snatch away coveted recruits one-after-another during the Tubby era. (How much better is it to be on the other side now!?!)

We can’t do anything about the feelings of opposing fan bases, indeed, I’m not sure we should even try; chest thumping, after all, is what fans do. (Though we might resist the urge to ridicule, snicker and laugh at their pathetic recruiting on their own blogs – tacky.) But when we wonder at the anger and hate spewed at our program and coach by fans like those rooting for the Huskies (and believe me, it will get much worse if Seattle Guard Tony Wroten lands at Kentucky), think, RECRUITING!

This may be a tad off topic but since “early entry” was a part of the lede — I originally intended a Fanpost but since I’m a bit indolent (short night due to travel from Nicaragua) — I’ll just sneak it in here. Much has been posted on the discussion of early entry into the NBA vis a vis degree completion and much of it without corroboration. This WSJ piece provides the ROI on degrees from the top 20 colleges — not surprisingly only one is a public school: Cal Berkeley. At the top is MIT which provides a 12.6% annual return over 30 years, or $1.688 million on $189,300. Compare that with John Wall’s $20 million for 4 years (not to mention $25 Reebok contract, with others likely to come) and it becomes fairly obvious that the decision for first-rounders is a virtual slam dunk. And that’s without reflection on the opportunity to obtain a degree at a later time (see Meeks, Jodie).

A coach who does not provide and consider that data in advising his players would seem to me to be contravening his position of leadership and counselor.