How did we miss out on this guy a nine iron from the campus?
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@jayhawk-007 I’ve discussed this at length before. First thing I’d ask anybody who is wondering about this is: did you ever watch him play in high school? I did a couple of times, and what I saw was someone incredibly lazy. During a 3 game tournament his senior year. He was the tallest player on the court at all times by at least 4-6 inches. Easily the most athletic guy on the court. I don’t think he cracked 20 pts combined in the 3 games. Wasn’t even what is consider good on the boards. He was able to defend, but again this was against much smaller players so you had to wonder if it was just his height. Basically, he as thoroughly unimpressive.
However, that is not the main reason. After all, Calipari doesn’t recruit untalented players. The biggest reason was a lack of interest on his part in coming to KU. WCS played his high school ball that year (and maybe AAU ball if I remember correctly) with Shavon Shields, son of HOF former Kansas City Chief Will Shields. A lot of WCS’s “inner circle” came from Will, and for whatever reason they steered him clear of Lawrence. Recruiting is too time intensive to spend a great deal of it on a long shot that showed no interest, so Self moved on. Hard to blame him for that.
Anyway, just a refresher course on the recruitment of Willie Cauley (he added the Stein after his high school career was over).
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@icthawkfan316 I read he was regarded as a guy with a chip on his shoulder ; an attitude problem.
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Another thing to remember … this struck me when I read the KC Star article on WCS.
That was the recruiting class where Self admittedly went “all in” on Kaleb Tarczewski. That left us without options. We made a late push at Tony Parker as I recall after Tarc committed to AZ. We ended up with Landen Lucas.
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Just another example of Self being unlucky and Cal being lucky.
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@pimpjuice it’s a crap shoot!
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It is a crap shoot but interesting that a kid in our backyard ranked in the top 50 or so would be allowed to leave the state without any recruiting effort. Isn’t one of Self’s best attributes “Coaching em up”.
Stein was nothing special his first 2 years but something clearly changed this year. Maturity what not, Cal has “Coached him up” and made him a possible lottery pick.
Fast forward a few years and that’s why Self is recruiting 7-8 players right now.
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@BeddieKU23 some kids don’t want to be “coached up”.
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Very true, if Stein had a “attitude problem” or something other than talent that kept Self away then he took his own judgement into that decision. Stein clearly has benefited from coaching.
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@BeddieKU23 or changed his attitude. I’m pretty sure I could coach an athletic footer up too!
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What I recall from this recruitment is that Self wanted Ellis. Cauley started his HS career in a small town in Kansas and wasn’t really challenged by the competition, so he left there to go to Olathe Northwest.
I was personally always high on him because he was raw but very athletic. Self wanted Ellis because Ellis was a more polished scorer that you could potentially run the offense through. Cauley wasn’t ever going to be that, but Self missed on a potential game changing defensive player.
Self also thought he would land Tarc and have Ellis and Tarc for multiple years. He guessed wrong on that.
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Ellis and Stein don’t play the same position. We should have at least put effort into recruiting him. Of course it makes it look bad after the fact of not getting Tarc
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@justanotherfan my siblings and I all played against the stein family from spearville. The girls were all over 6 ft. Pretty uncommon then. They just kept reproducing and staying in spearville.
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Hopefully last nights post game performance by Cauley Stein makes some of you feel better about not landing him. You lose one game all year and you don’t have enough class to shake the hand of the other team? F*ck him and the other UK players who disrespected the entire WIsconsin team by simply walking off the court.
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Totally agree. The UK players that walked off the court without shaking hands, the twins and WCS, are sore ass losers. I’ve never had respect for any of them and this is why. And any coach that doesnt let his kids know that won’t be accepted isn’t much better.
After the game Andrew Harrison was on sitting at the interview table with his brother, Aaron, directly to his left and forward Willie Cauley-Stein directly to his right.
A reporter directed a question about Kaminsky toward Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns: ‘‘Karl could you talk about Kaminsky and what if anything is unique about defending him?’’ the reporter said. At the end of the reporters question you can hear Andrew say “Fūçque that N____”. Wow! Amazing.
But fear not! He didn’t mean it that way…
Andrew Harrison @DrewRoc5 First i want to apologize for my poor choice of words used in jest towards a player I respect and know. 2:25 AM - 5 Apr 2015
When I realized how this could be perceived I immediately called big frank to apologize and let him know I didn’t mean any disrespect 2:26 AM - 5 Apr 2015
We had a good conversation and I wished him good luck in the championship game Monday. 2:27 AM - 5 Apr 2015
Now I don’t know Andrew so maybe he does have a personality in which saying this phrase can be taken the wrong way but I see it for what was said. F that N is saying forget that guy but in a vulgar way. I’m not really sure there is a way to take jest with this way of saying it. I get that young black men use the N word in everyday life but still saying to “f” him isn’t in jest. Especially after you’d just left the court without exchanging hand shakes. Kentucky fans, players, and HC are one in the same.
And to think they’re all crying about the shot clock violation today. ESPN is restoring that but not the upper cut. Go figure.
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Willie Cauley Stein: 33 minutes 1/4 shooting 5 rebounds 1 asst 1 steal 2 blocks. Ay least he didn’t utter a racial slur after the game.
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Interesting to me that Cal chose the twins and WCS to sit at the press table with him, esp. knowing, as he must have, that those three had avoided the handshake line. I’ve come to cool my criticism of his coaching these past two seasons, but I still see him as an in-your-face personality whose natural bent borders on classless. He seems to fit well with UK basketball.
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@REHawk The rioting, the miss the handshake routine, the slur = LOW CLASS BOTTOM FEEDERS…
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People still talk about the 1976 Hoosier team. Be it undefeated, Coach Knight or even I. Thomas.
People still talk about that 1991 UNLV team, even though they didn’t win it all. It’s almost like Tarkanian had a cult following with that team.
But where will this years Kentucky team be in 26 or even 40 years? Will people still talk about them? Will anyone one compare other players to anyone on this team? Like they do to Stacey Augman?
Or will they just be an after thought in the history of the game?
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@JRyman I’ll remember them. They made us look like scared little girls in November. They should have been the first undefeated team in nearly 40 years. I didn’t watch the game last night and was shocked to read about it this morning. I’m impressed as hell by Wisconsin’s win. Go badgers!
Just shows how unpredictable the tournament is, and honestly makes me feel a little less bad about KU’s early losses.
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@jayhawk-007 We missed the same damn way that I sleep in the extra bedroom…BY CHOICE !!
WCS acted just like the other turds CAL is known to harbor & adore & so valiantly refers to as student athletes. Ya think in 2 yrs of college that Harrison might have learned how to express his feelings by a different descriptive epithet. His “one shining moment” quotation iis so friggin low it almost makes whale schitz look like shooting stars.
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To add to @icthawkfan316 comments I know several kids that went to school with him and the consensus was that he was real d-bag in school and he would have been locker room cancer at most schools that were not choke full of better/higher rated players like UK. Having said that, he turned out to be a pretty good defensive player, although it took some time, but I still don’t believe he would have been a good fit and he really had no interest coming to KU.
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@JRyman I think people will talk about that Wisconsin team that beat them, I hope so. How are you?
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@Crimsonorblue22 Oh well I’d like to say I’m on a roller coaster ride, but apparently it’s stuck on the loop and I’m up side down. Last Monday slept for 14 hours, Friday night might have slept for 14 minutes here 14 minutes there on and off all night.
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@JRyman dang! Really hate that, I gripe about minor things and you deal w/serious problems 24-7. It’s good to hear from you, keep in touch.
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@Crimsonorblue22 I stayed away from the board for the most part during the season partly due to the headaches and monitors, screens etc. But I also stayed away from some of the babble and complaining of players, coaches, games and such.
I was proud of this years team for doing what they did, sure they made mistakes, had let downs, this that and the other. Sounds like anyone else at their job too. There just isn’t a microscope on them at work.
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@JRyman I hear you!
