It’s like a soap opera the way some high school players’ recruitment goes. Kentucky is no stranger to that drama; I could cite the recruitments of John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Eric Bledsoe, Terrence Jones, and even Anthony Davis. Those recruitments involved a surplus of suitors per recruit. However, let’s look at the drama that unfolds when there is a surplus of recruits per suitor.
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[IMG]http://www.nationofblue.com/content/attachments/2909d1286389519-qmiller.jpg[/IMG]Exhibit A: Quincy Miller.
Scout.com just broke the news yesterday that Kentucky is officially no longer on Miller’s list, but those who have been following him have known as much for some time now. In fact, Evan Daniels of Scout.com revealed to KSR back on August 30th that it was essentially over. Why? Daniels opined that it was partially the commitment of Anthony Davis and partially the involvement of Miller’s AAU coach Brian Clifton (who evidently doesn’t “gee and haw” with John Calipari).
I personally think it has more to do with the commitment of Davis two weeks earlier. Most coaches (including Calipari) recruit more players than they have scholarships. Then as the class begins getting commitments, the coach just backs off of the recruitment of players at positions they already have (until the class is full, at which point they stop recruiting players for that class altogether). When Davis committed to Kentucky, Calipari probably backed off of recruiting Miller – which probably insulted Miller – who decided to take his skill set elsewhere for the one year he’ll probably play college ball.
[IMG]http://www.nationofblue.com/content/attachments/2910d1286389546-twroten.jpg[/IMG]Exhibit B: Tony Wroten.
Wroten was a Twitter darling considering UK among several other schools. That is, up until his visit to Louisville late last month, which he literally gushed about in tweets like “This arena is the BEST arena. Handsdown. Including the NBA.” and “Man I really don’t wanna leave the ville today but I have to”. When asked to rate his visit on a scale from 1 to 10, Wroten replied “15”. The next day Tony narrowed his list to five, and Kentucky wasn’t on it.
I’m guessing that the new intensity to Wroten’s relationship with Louisville stemmed from Calipari backing off of his interest, and not the other way around. Kentucky had already received a commitment from a higher ranked PG in Marquis Teague, so Wroten would be functioning as a 2 guard if he came to Kentucky. Calipari probably knew before anyone that Wroten was determined to be a 1 guard at his university of choice (as reported [URL=”http://www.nationofblue.com/where-s-love-tony-wroten-2904/”]here[/URL] earlier), so he probably backed off of that recruitment in pursuit of someone who would be willing to play the 2. So in answer to Tony’s own tweet this past Monday “@UKCoachCalipari aye coach. I just wanna know why u stopped recruiting me?”. Well, I guess because you were determined to be a PG, and we already have one of those. It’s not you, it’s us. Really. We just want to be friends right now.
