So why didn't Ja Morant (Murray State) even get a sniff by our coaches out of high school? He's a sophomore LOTTERY PICK (#1 or #2) for gawd's sake!
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I hear ya. But occasionally everybody misjudges a kid. Morant was nowhere to be found on rivals in the class of '17. Unranked kid out of South Carolina. Would have been a nice diamond in the rough to come up with but can't really blame Cal for not finding him. We signed 7 kids in that class ranked ahead of him. He just blossomed. And I can guarantee...he ain't going 1st. The Savior of the basketball world is going 1st.
Not to mention we have "missed" on several guys who are front and center on the FBI tapes.Last edited by Catsrock; 04-03-2019, 10:32 PM. -
Is this for real?
Morant's offers (all of them) were - Murray St, Duquesne. Maryland Eastern Shore, South Carolina St, and South Carolina.
Murray St discovered him on accident while watching another kid.
350 schools missed on him, including every big name program...not just Cal and UK.Comment
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One does wonder how so many big schools missed him. Of course it's also worth wondering how he'd do versus top level competition on a consistent basis.Comment
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Morant's from South Carolina so it isn't like we missed somebody from our back yard.
The far more concerning things with Kentucky's recruiting are players like Zion and Trae Young and James Wiseman: players we spend literally years recruiting and who the staff clearly covets but who end up spurning us at the very end.Comment
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One thing also is retaining the guys you recruit that don’t end up going pro in 1 or 2 years. I understand that we don’t know the backstories on those who leave, but it forces the staff to make big hauls every year.
So I’m looking at the Ashton Hagans, Quickley, and Montgomery level players from this team. Baker, too.
We lost 7 or 8 players from the ‘17 team, already Quade from this one. There might have been and probably areinstances of some of these losses being net positives , but still...we’ve had a lot of transfers.
In that regard as well, I think we might have slipped a smidge in recruiting
I say that to bring up that we need a fresh face on the staff...but it has to be another Antigua, Payne level of staff member. I don’t know if Robic still has a slightly reduced role or notComment
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Yeah, if you're not landing elite-elite players*, then you have to become more traditional as far as who you keep past their freshmen year. And at Kentucky the post-sophomore year thing has become a major issue as well, as we all know.
You can't miss out on the Zions of the world and have one-and-dones and transfers. It can be one or the other but not both.
If you keep doing that you'll inevitably keep having to get really good luck late in the recruiting season...as we did last year with Travis and Hagans. This year we might need some more of that good luck but the players might not be there at the end to grab.
* I do think Maxey and Whitney are elite-elite players, but in Cal's very best years we were grabbing a player like that at virtually every position. It's almost like if you're running the one-and-done game you have to essentially have this firewall in your program to overcome the players you lose, and of course that firewall is basically recruiting elites to replace every guy who leaves.Comment
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Only Duke recently.
The only argument against our "great job" would be that we're missing out on many of those stone-cold studs. The last four years might be a testament to that.
I would argue that two of the last four years were an overtime and a last-second shot away from a Final Four, and that honestly those two teams were at least as good (if not better) than the 2011 and 2014 Final Four teams, but Kentucky has lost at least a little of its recruiting edge, no question.Comment
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It would have been interesting to have seen how Ja Morant would have fared against SEC competition--I live in Paducah so we have seen lots of coverage on him &it has looked impressive against OVC competition. Regardless of How people will compare him playing against higher level competition I wish him much success& have very n much enjoyed Seeing his play at Murray State!!!!Comment
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Morant would have been dominant against SEC competition. Elite player.
He had 38, 10, and 5 against Alabama. Had 25, 8, and 7 against Auburn. Had 17, 11, and 16 against Marquette. Had 28, 5, and 4 against Florida St.
He would have been the best player in every conference in America with the exception of the ACC.Comment
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The problem isn't just Duke, it's that we're losing the one-and-dones to other second tier schools. Wiseman to Memphis, Trae Young to Oklahoma are two recently that spring to mind. A bunch of people predicted Zion to Clemson last year.
I just go back to thinking about what this team would have been had Charles Matthews stayed.Comment
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You might've kept Matthews but that could have possibly led to no Keldon Johnson.
Offensively, Johnson was the better player his freshmen season than Matthews was this past year. (Defensively probably not.) So even if Johnson does come then you have that inevitable clash about playing time.
The 2012 team got away with this because they had a guy like Darius Miller, who didn't mind taking a step back. It fit into his personality. That isn't the case for most players at this level.
So who knows what domino effect Matthews staying would've caused.
And this isn't an argument that I'm glad we lost Matthews, only that Cal tends to not mind resetting the roster in part because it allows you to wash out some of that team strife you might otherwise see.
And this is why recruiting is so big at a place like Kentucky. It has to virtually be on point all the time. Because if you're resetting the roster then you really need to be in the mix for players who are going to be able to dominate right away.
We haven't had as many of those in the last four years. On top of that we've had the transfers. That's why you're seeing not-as-fantastic results.Comment
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