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Kentucky Wildcats Morning Quickies: One-And-Done Edition

Duke is finally accepting the reality that they, like Kentucky are a one-and-done school. How nice.

By Glenn Logan
IPFW v Kentucky Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, and welcome to the Tuesday Morning Quickies.

I came across this article where the Duke Basketball Report, a frequent critic of one-and-done style recruiting, has been forced to embrace that reality as their own with the Blue Devil’s movement to that model a few years back. It just struck me how most college basketball fans would rather embrace change than stick with resenting on something or other they no longer like about their favorite team.

I think it’s healthy. Change is inevitable, and we all know how long and hard we at A Sea of Blue fought back against the invective, mocking, and sometimes even hatred of how John Calipari recruits, and how frequently we had to debunk the lies and misinformation about him and what he does.

Almost nobody criticizes Calipari for his recruiting anymore, and some would say it’s because of Mike Krzyzewski’s embrace of the system. Since criticizing Krzyzewski is apparently off-limits to the sports media, they are forced to give up on Coach Cal in order to avoid an overt hypocritical double-standard. Others might say that Krzyzewski merely validated the one-and-done as a recruiting model. Either way, while people still criticize the framework, they no longer revile the coaches who embrace it.

But even as that happens, we see Calipari changing again. He’s still recruiting top players, but in a different way and at a very slightly different level than he did back in the early part of his tenure. It seems to me that Calipari is attempting to innovate, and perhaps to prepare for what he sees as the next step in the evolution of college basketball recruiting when the one-and-done path inevitably changes to something else. What else, we don’t know, and I don’t think the nebulous so-called proposals of the Commission on College Basketball provided much clarity on that subject.

Lest you think I am totally critical of the Commission report, I’m not — I think there is much of value to consider in there, but their examination of the one-and-done is essentially a “Something Must Be Done” plaint without a practical theory to do it other than some shopworn, pro forma suggestions.

Nevertheless, change college basketball must, and Calipari appears to be positioning himself for what he sees as the most likely outcome of this evolution. Unfortunately, your humble corespondent is only a blogger emeritus now, and I have little insight to offer as to exactly what that change might eventually look like. Whatever it is, though, you can be sure that Coach Cal will start, and stay, ahead of the curve.

Tweet of the Morning

Preach, brother Mike. We’ve been living that here for the last eight years.

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