Oh Well- Say what you want but they were the best team

[HuskyBballFan]

Oh, I think other coaches will definitely change how they recruit based on the squid's success. It has now been shown that collecting one-and-dones can win you a championship. More coaches will now be doing whatever it takes to get them. If I thought it would mean that Calipari would lose some, I would say no biggie. The problem is that Calipari will still get the best of the one-and-dones (thanks to WWW, Jay-Z and Nike) and the rest will be divided up by a larger number of coaches (Kansas, Memphis, Ohio State, Baylor and others who are willing to do what it takes to get these kids). The divide you saw this year will now be an annual event so long as the squid sticks around.

Brad Stevens is a bad example. He won with a veteran group of lesser recruited players but struggled when it came time to re-load with new lesser recruited players. The squid will never have to suffer through a season like that. Coaches who are willing to suffer through an NIT season now and then and work hard to build players and a team over several years won't fall into the one-and-done squid trap. But coaches know that winning means job security and more money so there will be a growing number that will want to win every year like the squid.

I still don't understand what's going to change. More teams are going to try and recruit one-and-done players? The best players already get recruited by every big conference school in the country. Providence and West Virginia recruited Andre Drummond, for example.

Plus, how many one-and-done talents are there in a given year? Five? Ten? There aren't enough of those types of talents for teams to try and replicate the UK model. If there are 8 one-and-dones in a given class and Calipari gets 4 of them, guess what, everyone else will have to continue to make due with a more balanced roster.

 

[caw]

Outside Terrence Jones, that is a very likeable group of kids (from just watching games on TV and interviews). I don't even dislike Jones, he just showboats a bit more than in warranted.

I am not a fan of Calipari at all, but he did a fantastic job of getting that team to play fantastic team defense. He also got them to buy into sharing the ball on offense.

I don't think Calipari's style would work with a less physically talented group (or if the playing field were level), as UK made probably 50 percent of their plays based on pure athletic ability, but he doesn't recruit lesser talented individuals either.

It was quite impressive how physically superior this group of UK kids were.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

Dude you said lucky not me

The word "lucky" is in your post. What am i missing?

 

[Ricky1Moore]

The word "lucky" is in your post. What am i missing?

You just completely missed the point of my post and mis-charaterized it as me calling Kentucky lucky. They weren't lucky at all, they were the best team, obviously. And if Calipari were a better game coach then the game wouldn't have become a game at the end the way it did... in fact they almost blew it to a far inferior team because, IMO, Calipari isn't a great in-game coach.

That is why I said Kansas almost stole it, which they almost did, even though they were clearly inferior.

 

[willie99]

they had a great freshman class, maybe the best ever

two of their freshmen leave as the 1st and 2nd picks in the NBA draft

and yes, they were the best team

 

[RuffRuff]

We fail to forget that Calipari knows how to coach and motivate these kids - the excuse all year with Uconn was that they were young. While the talent Calipari brought on was astronomical, it's no way achievement to bring a young group like that together to play great team basketball - that is part of the equation. Say what you will about Caliparis recruiting tactics, but he's also a very good coach.