There isn't a coach in college basketball that wants to get into a recruiting war with the Kentucky Wildcats because there is a consensus amongst the teams in the power 6 conferences that the blue-chip recruit is more than likely going to be taking his talents to Lexington, Kentucky. Although most coaches and especially fans dislike the rules surrounding NBA eligibility (you have to be at least 19 years old during the calendar year of the draft and have to be at least one year removed from high school), John Calipari has perfected the college basketball system.
Whether the rule should be changed or not, Calipari has built a blueprint for success in Lexington through one and done players. Coach Cal's unbelievable coaching record of 173-20 in the last five years (his last two years with Memphis and his first three years with Kentucky) has been accomplished by having a new crop of talented superstar freshmen each year.
In 2007, after leading Memphis to a 33-4 record and an elite eight appearance in 2006, Calipari was able to lure point guard Derrick Rose to Memphis from Simeon Career Academy in Chicago. Rose would become the first of a long line of super talented point guards to commit to Calipari and it would be the first of many top 10 recruiting classes for Coach Cal.
After being selected as a third team All-American, Rose left for the NBA where he was drafted number 1 overall by his hometown Chicago Bulls.
After reaching the NCAA Championship Game and falling a Dererk Rose free-throw away from winning the title in 2008 over Kansas, Tyreke Evans followed in Rose's footsteps by committing to play point guard under Calipari with the Tigers. Evans won the National Freshman of the Year award as voted on by the USBWA (United States Basketball Writers Association) and led the Tigers to a 33-4 record and a sweet 16 appearance.
Like Rose, Evans bolted for the NBA after his freshman year and was drafted with the 4th pick by the Sacramento Kings.
Since Calipari left Memphis for Kentucky in 2009, his recruiting prowess has only improved. The Wildcats have become a gold mine for highly toted recruits because it is Kentucky, the winningest program in the history of college basketball, and recruits have seen the success that Calipari has had getting his players to become high draft picks in the NBA like Rose and Evans. Coach Cal has had the top recruiting class all three years he has been at Kentucky.
We all remember the Wildcats unreal 2009 freshmen class when they landed John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Daniel Orton, and Eric Bledsoe. Along with a 35-3 record and an elite eight appearance, John Wall won the 2009-2010 SEC Player of the Year award and the USBWA National Freshman of the Year award, while his fellow freshman teammate DeMarcus Cousins won the 2009-2010 SEC Rookie of the Year award.
They could have just renamed the 2010 NBA draft, the 2010 Kentucky draft. John Wall was drafted first overall by the Washington Wizards, marking the second time in the past three drafts that Calipari coached the number 1 pick. DeMarcus Cousins went 5th to the Sacramento Kings, while Eric Bledsoe was drafted 18th and ended up on the Los Angeles Clippers. Finally, Daniel Orton became the fourth Kentucky freshmen to get selected in the first round when he went to the Magic 29th overall. Patrick Patterson, the only non-freshmen to get picked from Kentucky, went 14th overall to the Houston Rockets. The five players all drafted in the first round out of Kentucky set an NBA draft record.
Brandon Knight became the fourth highly rated freshmen point guard to play for Calipari, as he followed in the paths of Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans, and John Wall by playing a year at Kentucky and then going to the NBA.
Like all three of the point guards before him, Knight was selected in the top 10, as he went number eight overall to the Detroit Pistons.
Although due to eligibility issues Turkish star center Enes Kanter was never able to play for the Cats, he was selected third overall in last year's draft by the Utah Jazz, adding on to the long line of Calipari commits to have left after one season and become a top ten NBA draft pick.
Calipari proved once again this year that he is able to get the best kids from around the country to come to the Bluegrass State and play for the Wildcats. Anthony Davis, who was a 6-2 point guard only getting looked at by Cleveland St. before he grew 8 inches between his junior and senior year, was lured to Big Blue. Davis joined Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, the number 4 ESPNU recruit, along with McDonald's All-Americans Marquis Teague and Kyle Wiltjer as the top Kentucky commits.
In next year's NBA draft, it will once again be more of the same with Kentucky freshmen getting picked left and right. There is a tremendous possibility that Anthony Davis will be the first pick and he will be followed by his teammate Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. If this were to occur, it would mark the first time teammates would go number 1 and number 2 in the same draft.
Calipari's unprecedented recruiting success has caused a tremendous amount of controversy and discussion over players going to college for a year and then entering the NBA draft, like so many Calipari players do every year.
David Stern has publicly made comments in the past few days that he would look to get rid of the one and done players. He said, "We [the NBA] would love to add a year."
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban took it a step further when he supported the idea that college kids should be three years removed from high school to enter the NBA draft.
As the debate rages on, it is important to remember that Calipari is trying to win and his main goal is to bring back championships to Lexington. By getting tons of players into the NBA, recruits want to play for Calipari, which in turn helps the Wildcats have a talented team that is going to compete for a title and this is Cal's ultimate goal.
However, the difficult part about coaching one and done players is they sometimes are more concerned about getting to the next level and showing what they can do to NBA scouts than doing whatever they can for the team. This was one of the problems with the 2009-2010 Kentucky team, which had all that incredible talent but failed to even make the Final Four.
As he has shown in the NBA, DeMarcus Counsins has always been quite a headcase and he is a difficult player both to play with and coach. Calipari said about his 2010 team before the SEC tournament, "I'm doing everything in my power to get through to my very young team... There's only one thing that can affect us in any of these tournaments. And that is us... These kids are 19. They don't know how to react as things get thrown at them." Counsins showed throughout the season his immaturity and inability to deal with adversity. He would constantly show his poor attitude and often sulked on the court and on the bench. When Cousins was upset when he wasn't getting calls from the refs during Kentucky's final SEC regular season game against Florida, he refused to warm-up with his teammates for the second half even as they tried to console him and get him to cheer up.
Kentucky's awful shooting was definitely a huge reason the Wildcats were bounced out of the NCAA tournament in the Regional Finals. The Wildcats were just 4 for 32 from three, which was a woeful 12.5 percent from behind the arc during the loss. However, Kentucky also showed their immaturity, as they appeared frazzled in the loss, especially after Joe Mazzulla began to go off for the Mountaineers.
Despite starting three freshmen (Marquis Teague, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, and Anthony Davis) and two sophomores (Doron Lamb and Terrence Jones) and having another freshman as one of their first two men off the bench (Kyle Wiltjer), the Wildcats played like a very mature team. If you had to guess, you would never think that 6 of the 7 guys in Kentucky's rotation were freshmen and sophomores. Not only did they have incredible chemistry and played together as a terrific ball club, but they also all bought into during whatever the team needed to do in order to get a win.
Although they are most likely going to be the top 2 picks of the 2011 NBA draft, Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist never were on the court just looking to get their own shot and the two freshmen superstars were never trying to make plays just to impress some scouts in attendance. In fact, Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist were 4th and 5th on the Wildcats in field goal attempts per game, as they both only took just over 8 shots per game.
Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist both understood that the game would come to them and that if they weren't feeling it offensively, they could always change the game on the defense end of the floor.
Kidd-Gilchrist was so valuable for the Wildcats because the 6-7 forward had enough athleticism to guard opposing team's best perimeter player whether it was a point guard or a shooting guard and his length would always give them a lot of trouble.
John Calipari has said that Kidd-Gilchrist will remain one of his favorite players that he has ever coached because of the tremendous will and motivation that the versatile forward plays with and the win at all cost attitude that Gilchrist exudes.
Calipari said about Gilchrist, "He's got a great heart. He wants to please everybody... He wants to make sure that everyone's happy... He's more about everybody else more than about himself." It is very rare to find a player who was recruited as heavily as Gilchrist that is such an unselfish guy and who is all about the team, but Kidd-Gilchrist was all about what the Cats needed this year and not about anything else.
He showed this attitude when he went to Coach Calipari and told him that Darius Miller should start instead of him in the SEC tournament finals because the SEC Sixth Man of the Year was scoreless in the team's first two SEC tournament games. To recognize that a teammate is struggling and make sure that he receives more playing time so he can get his confidence back, was a move that was well beyond Gilchrist's years. It was a move that eventually helped the Cats pull off the National Championship run, as Miller averaged just under 12 points per game in the tourney and Kidd-Gilchrist got his dream of a college title.
Anthony Davis's presence on the defensive end of the floor can not be understated. Davis grabbed any rebounds near him with his incredible wingspan and he was obviously one of the best shot blockers that has ever played in college basketball. Davis finished the season with 186 blocks, which surpassed Hassan Whiteside's freshmen record of 182, which he did with Marshall in 2009-2010, as well as Jarvis Varnado's SEC shot blocking record of 170, which he did with Mississippi St. in 2008-2009.
Davis showed in the NCAA tournament championship game how he has absolutely no ego and that he will do whatever it takes to get a victory. Although Davis had just 6 points, he had a tremendous affect on the outcome of the game. Davis had 16 rebounds including 4 on the offensive end to go along with 5 assists, 3 steals, and 6 blocks. The Jayhawks had a miserable time trying to finish in the lane over Davis's incredibly long outstretched arms, especially Big 12 Player of the Year and First-Team All-American Thomas Robinson, who was 6 for 17 from the field and had several shots blocked by Davis.
Marquis Teague also grew up right in front of our eyes this season. It was a fair question at the beginning of the year whether Teague would be a consistent enough point guard to led the Cats to the promise land. He looked very unsure of himself on the court, as he often struggled with his shot selection and his turnovers on the onset of the year. Teague had at least 6 turnovers in two of the Cats first four games including a very poor performance against Kansas in the Champions Classic at Madison Square Garden in November.
However, as the year went along, Calipari and the Wildcats began to trust Teague with the ball more and more. Instead of folding under the criticism and pressure from the media and Kentucky fans to step up his play, Teague was huge for UK, as he looked like a different player by the end of the year. He showed that he doesn't play as young as his age says he is. In fact, in the title game against Kansas, Teague's season came full circle, as he had 14 points and huge buckets down the stretch. Teague hit a huge three from the top of the key in the ladder stages of the second half, which ended a 8-0 Kansas run after the Jayhawks had cut the lead to 7. He also had two very important free throws with under a minute remaining, which extended the Kentucky lead to 8 points and kept the Jayhawks at least at a 3 possession distance.
With their 67-59 victory over Kansas, Kentucky has now won 8 NCAA National Championships and they are just three shy of UCLA's record 11 NCAA titles. The main cog in Kentucky's championship run this year was that all of the young Wildcats bought into winning and doing whatever it takes for the team. They all played beyond their years and showed incredible maturity for being such young kids.
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