bear with me on this - I'll bring it back around to Jay Bilas at the end
reading some of the threads from fans on other sites, they have to ask - why don't we get more 5* recruits at our University? which, btw, was the same questions we were asking when Cal was at Memphis, Roy took over UNC and Vitale recruited for Duke twice a week during ESPN basketball games - and I just wasn't ready to accept the answer to the question of why would a kid want to come to Lexington.
and the harsh answer was - even with the occasional hits with recruiting - we didn't do much to differentiate ourselves... at least not until we built the practice facility. And that still wasn't enough. The "but we're Kentucky" just didn't have enough impact to kids during the era of Michael Jordan.
What Cal has done is just what anyone who approaches it as a business would - what do we need to do to differentiate this program from everyone else - and the answer is putting the players first....and to be honest, its kind of a "well duh" type of response. Why didn't anyone do this sooner?
Too many coaches were about what are you going to accomplish here - in the context of what are you going to do for the program, the university and for me - instead of being about what can we do for you? and the attitude was only after you accomplish something here can you be ready to go - and if you don't buy into that, we're going to ruin your college career. Good luck at a lesser school kid.
and Cal's approach has changed that - by making it about kids getting their dreams - which is for 90% of the kids that Cal is targeting - not a college education; the result is he has opened up a pipeline to UK. And telling the media that the year will be a success when on the NBA draft he makes his kids millionaires and not based on whether they win the national championship just feeds into it even more.
UK fans have finally come to understand that Championships are a by product of getting that pipeline and you get that pipeline by putting the kids NBA aspirations first, ahead of everything else. Of course a statement like that causes a knee jerk reaction from the people who think they are basketball purists.
Cal understands they have to attend class, they have to stay out of trouble, they have to practice servant leadership for all of this to work, but they in turn understand the payoff from having to work hard, being disciplined, is a potentially huge NBA contract after an 18 month commitment. A life altering you just won the lottery event.
But he isn't apologizing for a kid that attends the basic math, english, and elective classes without considering the long term education plan - because the next step is the NBA. They make the grades, they attend class - they do all the things that a student must do to be a student athlete, and quite honestly, the people that want to say we are running a NBDL franchise are just hypocrites because they'd expect the same of their program if given the chance and they'd applaud their players, coach and program for doing so.
Cal just hasn't take it one level up - he's at the point where there is a pool of talent - more talent than he needs - so he gets to be choosy for the most part - and that means, not rolling the dice on a kid with anger issues, or questionable guardians or driving a range rover as a Junior in high school - and that lends itself to what Bilas is talking about .
These kids make the grades, they don't get suspended, they play for each other and they do what they need to do, because they trust that Cal at the end of the day is going to make every decision about them getting the most out of their time at UK - and the payoff is worth the commitment to servant leadership and hard work. They're not going to mess that up.
inevitably one day we'll get a kid that doesn't buy in - an off campus incident, failing a class or not being part of the team on the court - and we'll hear about it, but until then UK has a product the fans , the university and the team itself can be proud of - and Bilas and many others are taking note as other schools deal with the failure of the university and players trying to match it (in terms of off campus issues, academic integrity, etc.,)
This post was edited on 3/9 1:00 PM by TankedCat
