2024 Roster (Enter Antonio Reeves & Tre Mitchell)

[Joneslab]

The question is, will guys my age live long enough to see it?

The good news for the old guys is that college basketball is a very flukey sport. You don't have to tediously build a program the way you do in football. Basketball championships can be won behind one or two great players.

Of course that works both ways. You can have a great team only to see it knocked out in March. But on the whole rebuilds can happen very quickly in this sport--and of course the portal situation and COVID rules have made that more true than ever.

[Joneslab]

Back to the roster: apparently Rutgers pg Paul Mulcahy is still considering Kentucky. That'd be a really good pick-up this late in the game.

[Joneslab]

Also now that Huggins is out West Virginia's roster looks like it might be up for grabs.

Appears that the only elite player they have is Syracuse transfer Jesse Edwards. And he *is* elite...but he's also a center. With a player of that caliber position doesn't matter but unfortunately WVU was senior-laden last year so there's not a ton of proven talent on their roster outside Edwards.​

[George]

Also now that Huggins is out West Virginia's roster looks like it might be up for grabs.

Appears that the only elite player they have is Syracuse transfer Jesse Edwards. And he *is* elite...but he's also a center. With a player of that caliber position doesn't matter but unfortunately WVU was senior-laden last year so there's not a ton of proven talent on their roster outside Edwards.​

Battle would help our team.

[KCKUKFan]

Edwards has two weeks to transfer and won't need a waiver.

Get it done Cal.

[SCBlu]

Some background the 6-foot-11 Edwards: Averaged 14.5 points, 10.3 rebounds, 2.7 blocks and 1.3 steals in 32.6 minutes for Syracuse last season, being named All-ACC Third Team and to the All-ACC Defensive Team as a redshirt junior. ESPN slotted him third in theNCAA transfer portal rankings. Edwards picked West Virginia over Kansas, Gonzaga, Virginia Tech, Texas Tech, Michiganand others. Not sure if UK was ever in the hunt for him after he entered the transfer portal. At this juncture, he'd be a great get.

[KentuckyWild2020]

Was thinking the same thing, any West Virginia kids want to come play for Kentucky?

[Jody Porter]

I've been reading this thread for about an hour this morning trying to get caught up after a week in Disney World. Wow, a lot has happened. The one that bugs me the most right now is Bidunga. Really, really wanted that guy (and his buddy Travis Perry, who I predict will be a package deal).

Touching quickly on a few things I saw on this thread:

* Joey Hart. I like it. He's a good shooter, but also seems to have more athleticism than previously thought. I don't know if Cal still has it in him to develop a talent like this, but if nothing else it'll be fun to watch.

* Some comparisons to the end of Tubby's run. I was a big Tubby guy. My favorite team ever is probably the 2003 team. I didn't sour on Tubby until quite a bit later than most (I think it might have been the free throw incident in the SEC tournament that cost us a win over Mississippi St). But as down on Cal as I am (and believe me, I am down on Cal, big time), the biggest difference is the man just brought in the top recruiting class in the country. How he does with that class will, of course, matter a lot more than their HS rankings. I don't have a lot of optimism.

* I'm in a weird place with Cal. I like the guy, a lot. As a guy. He genuinely seems like a fantastic person. I think he's done a terrible job with the program the last three years (at least) (and yes, I'm including the 2022 team in that; fun season, but there were glimpses of issues that were kind of hidden because of the wins. Grady could barely walk after games late in the season, at least according to him. He was spent, physically. But he had to play because there was no one else. Roster construction. Poor.)

* Continuing that bullet point: is there someone out there right now who I think could clearly do a better job than Cal? I don't know. I'd love to try it, though. There are times when an organization's culture can be improved simply through a change, even if the specific change isn't, on its own, one that would stand out as an obvious improvement.

* But that said, Brad Stevens would be a clear improvement. Make him say no. I don't think he will. I am probably wrong. I still think "the best" know that they will only be looked back on as "the best" if they take on a job like head ball coach for the University of Kentucky Wildcats basketball program. Again, I'm wrong about that, but am I though? Probably, but also maybe not.

* I have a crazy idea that would "fix" "college" sports, but it will never happen. Won't go into a lot of details here because I haven't worked out all the details yet. But it involves taking all college teams and putting them in one big league with all pro teams in their respective sports. Introducte relegation and promotion. Basically model it off the English Football League. You laugh, but deep down, you also know that this is where it's headed. The Rubicon has been crossed. This would be the best of all the possible logical outcomes.

This is a long post. Apologies. I have many more thoughts, but I'll parcel them out throughout the day in smaller snippets.

Good to see you all, WCN.

[Jody Porter]

(follow up: for the "EFL" thing to work, obviously it would mean major college sports as we know them would no longer exist. But the "Kentucky Wildcats" would still exist. This would only work for the major sports, but that's all it would need to work for. My only fear is that this could harm other sports on campus wrt funding. But very smart people would work on that and figure it out. This is a crazy idea, I'm aware, but if nothing else it's fun to think about and talk about. I'm getting roasted in the group text thread with my friends, but only because they are stupid.)

[Joneslab]

* I have a crazy idea that would "fix" "college" sports, but it will never happen. Won't go into a lot of details here because I haven't worked out all the details yet. But it involves taking all college teams and putting them in one big league with all pro teams in their respective sports. Introducte relegation and promotion. Basically model it off the English Football League. You laugh, but deep down, you also know that this is where it's headed. The Rubicon has been crossed. This would be the best of all the possible logical outcomes.

This is interesting. And controversial because it completely does away with the student-athlete thing we've been clinging loosely to for the last half-century.

I said this above to some extent, but the reason something like this is difficult to imagine is because the appetite for basketball in the United States right now is not completely widespread. It's sorta niche. And it's definitely not comparable to soccer in most of the rest of the world with its ungodly popularity.

I've said for the last three or four years that the semi-pro leagues will eventually fail simply because they won't be able to sustain themselves. Know anybody who watched anything except clips of Ignite last year? Know anybody who's ever watched a G-league game? There's no way that business model can sustain itself, especially because the NBA teams who are backing those semi-pro organizations are reportedly in dire financial straits themselves.

You could throw college teams into that mix to bolster things, maybe. College teams have built-in revenue. But even in college basketball there are a handful of programs and then everybody else; it's unlike football where you have moneymakers all across the power conferences. And even with the sport of football, as popular as it is, they haven't been able to sustain semi-pro leagues.

[Joneslab]

And re: the roster again, there are several videos going around showing Antonio Reeves' locker. It still has his name on it.

That could mean nothing but it's still odd, right?

There's still a *longshot* possibility Kentucky could put together a top 5 team. If they brought back Reeves and added Edwards* from WVU that's probably the type of team we thought we might get two months ago when we first heard about Hunter Dickinson.

* I remain very skeptical about Edwards only because it seems such a weird hail mary, but who knows.

[DA#23]

We probably need all three things to play out, with the third being that Bradshaw plays .

[Joneslab]

We probably need all three things to play out, with the third being that Bradshaw plays .

Weirdly if we got Edwards and kept Reeves that might entice Klutch to "allow" Edwards to play, simply because there'll be more help around him.

[George]

Weirdly if we got Edwards and kept Reeves that might entice Klutch to "allow" Edwards to play, simply because there'll be more help around him.

You mean Bradshaw, or are you suggesting Klutch might also try to shut down Justin Edwards?

[Joneslab]

You mean Bradshaw, or are you suggesting Klutch might also try to shut down Justin Edwards?

I meant Bradshaw but it wouldn't surprise me if we didn't hear something about Edwards' "foot."