A look at UK’s basketball recruiting
November 23rd, 2009 | 
Author: Editor’s note: Aaron Kall is the Assistant Director of Debate at the University of Michigan, but he graduated from Kentucky in 2001 with a major in Communication and minor in Political Science. He runs Aaron’s UK Basketball Blog at http://kybasketball.blogspot.com/ and http://twitter.com/AaronsUKBBBlog, a blog devoted entirely UK basketball since July of 2006. He offers his insights on John Calipari’s recruiting and looks ahead at what might happen.
By AARON KALL
As expected, Tobias Harris announced his commitment to the University of Tennessee. He is the latest five star recruit who considered Kentucky, but ultimately chose another destination for college. Others who made similar decisions include Kyrie Irving (Duke), Will Barton (Memphis), Jelan Kendrick (Memphis) and Adreian Payne (Michigan State).
Kentucky has so far received one commitment from four-star small forward Stacey Poole. While Poole is an excellent prospect that could be a five-star recruit by the end of the year, most fans are probably surprised and a bit nervous that Kentucky only has one commitment at the conclusion of the early signing period. At this juncture last year, Calipari had secured the commitment of two top 50 recruits and two solid junior college players.
Fan anxiety can somewhat be attributed to unrealistic expectations regarding recruiting success. While Calipari did land the number one 2009 recruiting class at two different schools, such success cannot be replicated every single year. The current group of six new players at Kentucky is very unique and considered one of the top recruiting classes of all time. In the time period from 2003-2008, Calipari garnered four top 10 recruiting classes according to Rivals.com. His 2003 and 2006 classes were unranked.
Kentucky’s 2010 recruiting class is critically important because of numerous expected departures at the end of the season. Perry Stevenson, Ramon Harris, and Mark Krebs are supposed to graduate. John Wall, Patrick Patterson and DeMarcus Cousins will probably leave for the NBA. Eric Bledsoe could bolt for the NBA and the return of DeAndre Liggins is very unclear at this time. It’s possible that Kentucky could have to fill eight roster spots.
Since Kentucky needs to add several players for next year, why have they missed on so many five star recruits? The most commonly cited explanation is that more of the top recruits are waiting until the late signing period. This is technically correct, but only by a very negligible margin. As of today, 23 of the top 150, or 15 percent, of the Rivals.com 2010 recruits remain uncommitted. At this time last year, 18 of the top 150 were uncommitted.
Calipari had the fourth ranked recruiting class according to Rivals.com at this time last year. Derrick Rose committed to Calipari during the early signing period in 2006, but Tyreke Evans did wait until the late signing period in 2007. John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, and Eric Bledsoe signed late in 2009.
The major reason Kentucky has only one commitment can be traced to Calipari’s loss of former assistant coach and lead recruiter Josh Pastner to Memphis. Before joining Calipari at Memphis, he was an assistant coach at Arizona for seven seasons. Pastner accepted a similar job at Kentucky in May, but was hired by Memphis as head coach.
Calipari knew the loss of Pastner would be devastating and made a lucrative offer to Manhattan coach Barry Rohrssen, who is known as an excellent recruiter. Rohrssen declined the offer, and Calipari promoted Rod Strickland from his position as Director of Basketball Operations at Memphis to assistant coach at Kentucky.
Pastner has already created a recruiting juggernaut at Memphis by landing the number one recruiting class in the country according to ESPN.com, while his replacement Strickland is still cutting his teeth on the recruiting trail. Poole was primarily recruited by Calipari and Orlando Antigua. Despite being the godson of Strickland and attending Big Blue Madness, five-star recruit Kyrie Irving committed to Duke.
Despite several setbacks in the early signing period, Kentucky is in a very good position with five of the remaining top six uncommitted players. Brandon Knight, Josh Selby, Terrence Jones, C.J. Leslie, and Doron Lamb are all five star top-20 recruits that have Kentucky in their final list of schools. Kentucky isn’t necessarily in the lead for any of these five recruits and will battle elite programs such as Kansas, Syracuse, and Connecticut.
If Kentucky misses out on several of their top five remaining targets, expect them to become involved with former recruits who decided to wait until the spring such as Cory Joseph, Ray McCallum and Roscoe Smith. Chris Hill, Eloy Vargas, and Gorgui Sy Dieng are also possibilities. Strickland was recently seen at Huntington Prep (WV) and may have been there scouting Dieng, a 6-foot-10 center from Senegal who impressed at the Nike Global Challenge in August. Both on and off the court, spring should be an exciting time for nervous Kentucky fans.
Posted in UK Basketball
Aaron, I check on your blog every day. Great work.
Larry, yet another solid guest writer.
Aaron or Larry, how many spots will Cal be willing to just leave unfilled, if he can’t get exactly the right person? I would hate to think he would go into a season with less than 11, but he talked this summer like he was willing to do that. Who do you forsee being a better recruiter, as time goes on: Cal or Pastner. I have heard many people say that Pastner was the key to Cal’s success, but he was only with him the last few years, so Cal was obviously pretty good without him.
I’m a huge Aaron’s blog and Vaughts’Views fan. Are there any in-state or JUCO players in the mix for 2010. I saw that Ricky P is going after a JUCO player. Thanks Guys.
Larry,
Is Richie gonna start tonight? How many points is he gonna score?
Give me Cal as a recruiter. Hard to fault what he has done. Pastner obviously is good, but the head coach still has to be the closer. I don’t think Cal will feel pressure just to fill spots. But I still think he could easily end up with four signees, and maybe five.
As for junior college, they are always looking and will be all year from what I was told.
In-state, I say no at this time.
Make sure to check out Aaron’s blog and let him know we appreciate him writing for us
Good article, Aaron, thanks. I’ve thought about losing Pastner as well, and, while I think all UK fans would have loved to have him here, I kinda ‘downplay’ losing him because I get the feeling he would have been a head coach 1-2 years anyway, IMO.
Certainly, if he would have come, it would help recruiting this year (Will Barton, Joe Jackson, etc.), but I think his tenure here would have been short.
Looking back at Calipari’s staffs at Memphis and UMass, he’s always had kind of a ‘rotating door’ at assistant as guys are regularly leaving for head coaching jobs and whatnot and never a set, long-term staff (minus Robic whose been his assistant for awhile on two different occasions after a failed head coaching gig). Even Antigua’s relatively new to Cal’s staff as he came in with Pastner.
Bottom line: yeah, we would have loved to have Pastner here for his (relatively short, IMO) stay, but as long as we have Cal, then it’ll all be fine. He’s got an ever-growing coaching tree, and his assistants usually always do well.
Excellent Piece, I think Aaron is right on…You do have to be a little concerned, But I see us getting Leslie..We need to pick up a PG..IMO..Night or selby would be great…Poole helps alot out on the wing..And another power forward, Your right LARRY, 4 maybe 5, and I do see a juco in this mix..Agreed CARSON..Pastner was ready I think for his own GIG, But I don’t think we panic..Make a deep run in MARCH and we get the 5 or6, A top 10 class IMO…leslie, selby, poole, and Lamb I think we get this class with a JUCO..That would be a top 10 or higher class….GO BIG BLUE!!!!
I am with you Carson. Cal is the common factor in all those great recruiting classes and will be the closer here. I think they get at least three more big-time players and who knows, maybe Cousins won’t leave. You just never know. Heck, Pat still won’t say he’s gone for sure
LARRY: If I ever HOPE you are right about anything ever..It would be your last two sentences..LOL….GO BIG BLUE!!!
Great article. I love your site.
BTW: I was watching one of those tourny games going on, And the announcer said,”SOME GREAT 4 YEAR PLAYERS AROUND THE COUNTRY” and Pat was the best one of all he said….So, that was news to me, I know it was a minor faupau..But man your getting 100 thousand a year to know these things..I heard the same thing last year early in the season with MEEKS…Maybe I’m wrong, But that tells me they don’t follow UK nearly as close as they do the OTHER Big Boys..Just me Venting..LOL!!!!GO BIG BLUE!!!!
One thing I won’t ever worry about with Cal as our coach is recruiting! I think UK fans (myself included) get overly anxious about recruiting, but the fact is a lot of the guys we will be recruiting will drag their recruitment out as long as possible. I think the trend as we move forward will be less guys signing in the early period, at least that’s where I see basketball recruiting going.
I still wish we could get an early signing period for football. I think that is one thing that could help UK football increase their talent levels.
I am with you Matt. See no reason not to have an early signing period for football. It would really help Kentucky
I too am a huge fan of Aarons UK blog….keep up the good work.
AMEN MATT, Alot of these 4 star kids are 3 stars before the senior season then they move up and then the “BIG BOYS” snatch them up…Seems like there was some noise being made about doing just that a couple years ago, But that seems like it has lost steam,GO CATS!!BEAT THE VOLS!!GO BIG BLUE!
TRUBLUE69-
Larry may know more than me, but I seem to remember it being brought up as a possibility by the SEC Commissioner a year or two ago, but the coaches at the “big boy” schools were completely against it and the idea was thrown to the curb. I just don’t understand why it’s good for one sport and not the other. But I guess that goes for a playoff system too.
The big boy coaches were indeed against it. They like to steal recruits at the end and don’t want that early signing day. You are exactly right Matt
Thanks for coming by Heavy. Hope we can get Aaron to write more here. He does a great job on his site
Hate to say it but Pastner is young and appeals to recruits. He was directly involved with Memphis landing almost all of their big name players and he has continued this as head coach. Just look at the guys he has coming in 2010. Cal will shore up the reruiting but he will most likely keep us UK fans sweating it out until the end.
Pastner reminds me a great deal of Quinn Snyder, former coach at Missouri (perhaps that is an unfair comparison since Snyder cheated). He’s young and energetic and was tutored under a good head coach. But in the long run he will have to demonstrate that he can develop talent, manage personalities, motivate players to play through setbacks, and make game decisions under the spotlight. How well he does those things will determine his future success in recruiting. Glad to have Cal on our side.
I am with you Steve. Pastner has to prove now that he can not only get talent, but coach talent.
Fair point about Cal maybe keeping fans sweating, but I don’t think there is any reason to worry quite yet. compared to recent years, he’s still light years ahead
BTW: How soon do you think we start playing Pastners team LARRY? I think that could be a great budding rivalry, What do you think?….GO BIG BLUE!!! TIME for TIP OFF!!!! GO CATS GO!!!!