How much were former Kentucky Wildcats worth to UK?

Do you ever think about how much Kentucky players like John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, and even Anthony Davis were worth to the basketball program?

Well, there was an expert witness that handled the University of Louisville’s pay to play criminal case that was given the job to determine that.

WDRB’s own Jason Riley posted these tables on Twitter, which indicates the expert’s breakdown on how much each player on different Kentucky basketball teams was worth to the university respectively.

The 2009-2010 team was the first team under the John Calipari era, and the experts believe that John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Patrick Patterson were worth well over a million dollars each. I know it’s hard to imagine putting a price on players like that, but if you ask me, I believe that they were worth way more than that in retrospect.

I mean, if you look at all they have done for the basketball program with recruiting and even making that good run in the NCAA tournament, I think that makes a good argument that they would be worth that sum of money.

In the following season, it’s not too big of a shocker that Josh Harrellson’s worth went way up with his improved play along side Darius Miller, DeAndre Liggins, Terrence Jones, Doron Lamb, and even Brandon Knight. In my opinion,

I believe Knight could have been worth a little bit more than what was estimated at a little over $500,000, but other than that, the other figures seem to be about right for this team.

I don’t think anyone was surprised in seeing Anthony Davis’ worth being so high on the 2012 National Championship at well over two million dollars with Michael Kidd-Gilchrist being worth over one million dollars to the 2011-2012 basketball team respectively.

The last chart was of the 2012-2013 team with Kentucky players such as Nerlens Noel, Willie Cauley-Stein and Alex Poythress. They have Noel listed at being worth about $1.1 million dollars then it takes a pretty significant drop with Cayley-Stein and Poythress being worth a little over $600,000 to the 2012-2013 basketball team.

Finally, here is a list of the top recruiting schools and how much they spend when they’re on the recruiting trail, no surprise who’s number one with the school spending well over $400,000 to try to get the best of the best to come to Kentucky.

What are your biggest takeaways from this study?