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The Jig is up !!!

Cardiotonic

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Written by: Jeremy Haeseley

The Jig is Up. Stop Giving Calipari all the Credit
May 05, 2015

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Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
Yes, it's me again. You know, that guy who wrote about how Calipari was ruining college basketball (the whole team of one-and-dones verses normal callege basketball teams) a few months ago, the article that had some UK fans up in arms... Well, guess what? I've got more where that came from. Buckle up.

We all had to act surprised when the seven top scorers from Kentucky's Final Four team declared for the draft. Now, keep in mind, they had an NCAA record NINE McDonald's All-Americans on the roster.

We're always hearing about how good of a talent developer Calipari is. "He gets his guys ready for the league," they say. "He creates lotto picks," they say. Excuse me while I try to keep from laughing. Folks, you can call John Calipari a great recruiter. You can call him a great coach (you have to be to get that many freshman egos to play together.) BUT... Please don't say that he develops talent any better than 20 other college coaches.

Please tell me the last 3-star recruit he got drafted... I'll wait. No, on second thought, I won't wait, because I would be here all damn night. He has never done it.

You've got a guy that recruits 6 burger boys every year, and people act like he's some sort of superman when it comes to preparing players for the NBA.

They forget to bring up Daniel Orton. You know, the guy drafted 29th overall that has spent most of his professional career bouncing around the D-league and popping up to play in foreign countries from time to time. The McDonald's All-American 5-star recruit that can't seem to stay on an NBA roster for longer than a few weeks at a time. Yeah, that Daniel Orton. Should Cal get credit for that too?

What about Marquis Teague, the Indiana Mr. Basketball and burger boy that got drafted by the Bulls? Yeah, he's in the D-league too, for the better part of the last two seasons.

They also forget about the Harrison twins. Here's two guys, both McDonald's All-Americans, mind you, who spent TWO seasons with Calipari in Lexington. They had twice the amount of time with him and his system than most of his other players, yet both of them are projected as SECOND round picks this season. So.... They regressed while at Kentucky, or at the very least, failed to develop. Personally, I'm still trying to figure out how two 6'6 guards with that talent managed to play their way out of the lottery. It's puzzling, to say the least.

Are these three examples "the norm" for Calipari-coached athletes? No, but when you look at the other guys that have gotten drafted out of Kentucky over John Calipari's tenure, you start to see a rather obvious trend.

In his six seasons in Lexington, John Calipari has recruited and/or coached 21 McDonald's All-Americans at Kentucky. If you add Enes Kantor (played HS ball internationally, but same talent level) you have 22. Taking out the seven that just declared at the end of this season and have yet to be drafted, and Kyle Wiltjer (Gonzaga transfer) that leaves us with 12, 11 of which have gone on to get drafted in the first round, 9 of which were drafted in the lottery.

Conversely, John Calipari has not had a first round pick, let alone a lottery pick, at Kentucky that was not a burger boy or "5-star" recruit to start with. So I ask you, is this due to "coaching them up" or just simply finding and filling your roster with the most talented players in the country?

When you look at guys that have a reputation for talent development, and doing more with less, you could take a look at guys like Bo Ryan, Brad Stevens, Mark Few, etc. Gordon Hayward was a 3-star recruit when he arrived at Butler, as was Sheldon Mack. No one outside of state of Wisconsin had even heard on Frank Kaminski when he was being recruited as an unranked high school senior. He only turned out to be the national player of the year.

Even Indiana's own Tom Crean turned two lightly-recruited wings into NBA stars, in Victor Oladipo and Dwayne Wade.

When I see UK fans posting stuff on message boards and social media about "come to UK. Coach Cal will get you ready for the next level," quite frankly, it makes me cringe. High school athletes have been falling for the Calipari/William Wesley hype machine for several years now.

Can anyone honestly say that Anthony Davis, Nerlens Noel, or Karl-Anthony Towns would not have been a top 3 pick if they had gone to virtually ANY respective high major program? Anthony Davis was supposed to be the first can't-miss true center in a long time, and was ranked #1 coming out of high school. That guy could have gone to North Dakota State and been drafted #1 overall.

Look, call Cal a great recruiter, probably the best recruiter in college basketball. Call him a great game coach. His system obvious works for winning games, albeit in a conference where basketball is Luke warm at best, in the SEC, but please, PLEASE, stop this nonsense of saying he is any better at developing talent that anyone else. There's no evidence to back up the hype.

From the looks of things on this year's recruiting trail, it would seem that several late UK targets are opting for other places this off-season. Maybe they've finally caught on. We can only hope. This "unconventional team" stuff has worn out it's welcome with me, as I'm sure it has with a lot of others as well. Maybe someday college basketball can be "college" basketball again. Someday...

Call me a hater. It is what it is.
 
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