blogs: Billy Reed's Blog 

I've never paid much attention to the basketball recruiting services, which I consider to be little more than a scam. Anybody who knows anything about basketball always can pick out the really good prospects. When it comes to evaluating the others, I don't trust anybody who's egotistical enough to tell me he can really rate a bunch of players with any degree of accuracy. Unfortunately, the much-reviled “mainstream media” has given the recruiting services credibility they don't deserve, because it's easier for lazy reporters to use them as sources instead of doing their own research and checking. It's a sweet deal for both sides – the reporter gets quotes, the recruiting “guru” gets credibility. For coaches, the services are a double-edged sword. The coaches can't ignore them, yet they also must be careful about buying into them because they're going to get all the heat if a highly-rated recruit turns out to be grossly overrated. They're also going to get heat if they don't go after highly-rated players for non-basketball reasons they can't discuss. A coach can't say, “Yeah, Demarquesno is a great player, but he also can't spell 'cat' and he wants to be a bank robber if he can't make it in the NBA.” Tubby Smith, bless his heart, didn't put much store by the recruiting services during his years at the University of Kentucky. He refused to recruit “one-and-done” prospects on the grounds that it undermined the principle of academic integrity. He refused to deal with smarmy agents such as the notorious “Worldwide Wes.” He looked at a player's character and work ethic harder than his vertical leap and quickness. Which, of course, is why Tubby is at Minnesota today and John Calipari is at UK. Both coaches are good fits at where they are because their ways of doing business are in tune with the values of their fan bases. Calipari will go after – and get – many of the players that Smith had no interest in recruiting. I thought the recruiting hype had gotten about as big as it could get back when Ron Mercer and Damon Bailey were coming out of high school. That was in the late 1980s and early-to-mid-90s. But I was wrong. The internet and all its component parts – message boards, chat rooms, Tweets, etc. – was only beginning to evolve into the monster we know and love (?) today. Now the hype is absolutely, positively off the charts. As Exhibit A, I offer the preseason chatter about UK's freshman class, rated tops in the nation, and the chances that the Wildcats would (a) make the Final Four, (b) win the national title, and (c) go unbeaten. I've never seen anything quite like it, so imagine my surprise when I actually saw these players on the floor and discovered their warmups didn't come attached with Superman capes. This just in from Rupp Arena: UK 72, Miami of Ohio 70. The Cats trailed by 18 at home in the first half against an unranked team that fired the three like Rick Pitino's early teams in Lexington. They needed a buzzer-beater by all-world freshman guard John Wall to pull it out. Welcome to the real world, hypemeisters. This isn't to say that the recruiting services were wrong. Not at all. It's just that I never form an opinion about a player until I actually watch him play. Sometimes I think the recruiting services were pretty much on the money. But many times, I see something more -- or less -- than what the gurus see. For example, where they look at UK's DeMarcus Cousins and see a 2010 lottery pick, I see a lazy kid who's a long way from understanding how hard he has to work to reach his potential. He'll either respond to the challenge or Calipari will get blamed for doing a bad job with him. Nobody will suggest that maybe, just maybe, the recruiting services overrated him. Another thing I don't like about the recruiting services – and most coaches, for that matter – is their insistence on fitting every player into one of the five slots on the floor. If a player is told early on that he's a “2,” or shooting guard, he tends to work on the skills for that position only instead of developing his overall game. It didn't used to be that way. At a recent function, I walked into a conversation between Vernon Hatton and Adrian “Odie” Smith, the starting guards on UK's 1958 NCAA championship team. “OK,” I said, “which one of you was the point guard?” They looked at each other with puzzled expressions. Finally Hatton said, “We were just guards. Period. We both could bring the ball up the floor and start the offense. We both could shoot from outside and drive.” It should be the same way today with UK's star freshmen, John Wall and Keith Bledsoe. They should both be just guards, interchangeable because both have all-around games. Yet both have been so indoctrinated with a point-guard mentality that either will have trouble adjusting to a “2” guard mentality. Perhaps they will learn to play together. But it's instructive that Bledsoe, who thrived in the point guard's role in the opener against Morehead, disappeared against Miami of Ohio when the ball was taken out of his hands and given to Wall. Likewise, both Cousins and Daniel Orton are accustomed to being the biggest men on the floor. In college, it will be different. Both will have to learn to master different skill sets – the same as, say, Samardo Samuels and Terrence Jennings have done (and are doing) at Louisville. Don't misunderstand, please. I'm impressed with UK's raw young talent and am looking forward to watching Calipari mold them into an outstanding team. But right now they're far from shoo-ins to beat North Carolina on Dec. 5 at home, Indiana on Dec. 12 in Bloomington, and U of L on Jan. 5 in Rupp Arena. Each of those three teams have talented players who weren't hyped nearly as much as UK's freshmen. And trust me, the recruiting services don't mean squat once the players get into college. Then it's a matter of whether lazy players can learn to work hard, of whether high school stars can accept roles, of whether selfish players can learn to sacrifice, of whether big-headed players can accept coaching. So let's not punch UK's ticket to Indianapolis just yet. In fact, let's not just automatically assume that the Wildcats will win the championship of the Bermuda Triangle (Bloomington, Louisville, and Lexington). At IU, Coach Tom Crean has some exciting young talent that didn't come to come to college burdened with too much hype. And, well, anybody who underestimates the guy at U of L is a fool. Oh, yeah. I see that U of L has received a commitment from Russell Smith, a point guard from Brooklyn. The story in the Courier-Journal identified him as being “rated a three-star prospect by Rivals.com.” Whatever that means. Who cares? It's enough for me that Rick Pitino thinks he can play for him. Period.

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♥jaybeeM   tue nov 17 2009 at 2:30 pm         ·  "Keith" Bledsoe? Wait, did you get our team players names' from those same recruiting "gurus"? :) I kid. It's a fabulous time to be a KY fan... but I agree and hate that some players will only come for a year. Then again, I've come across a world of success and could honestly not finish school too... if you were told you'd be paid millions for a talent that you didn't NEED to learn, but innately had, would you still go to school? Hmm... Course, as I say that, I'm also finishing my degree... gotta always have something to come home to when it's all said and done! GO CATS!!

GrammarPolice   tue nov 17 2009 at 9:29 pm         ·  He refused to deal with smarmy agents such as the notorious “Worldwide Wes.” Please.