Luxury/Necessity Recruiting
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It seems like such a short time ago, Kansas was not landing many 5-star recruits on a regular basis. We counted on keeping guys for several years and developing them.
Then we started focusing harder on the elite recruits. In the beginning, landing one of these recruits was a luxury. We already had a team of guys with talent and experience, and the elite athlete was “icing on the cake.”
I believe this is the first year we are really having to COUNT on recruiting these elite players. I guess we could say the last few years have been feeling like this, but now it is late in recruiting and we still have large holes in our team and it looks like we’ve put all our eggs in one elite basket.
I wonder what that does to the dynamics of our recruiting, and how it will impact the elites we do sign? Won’t we have to “promise the moon” at this late stage of the game?
Will we have to entice players with celebrities, like Calipari does by offering up Drake? Is it going to come to that at Kansas? We’ve already flipped the coin for luxury apartments.
Listening to players like Maker and Zim make me sick to my stomach. I wonder if some of these other elites think similar but just aren’t speaking out. It takes a special player to be able to keep a healthy perspective while being bombarded with flattering attention.
I hope we land some talent soon to fill the holes in our post, but not if it means recruiting players that don’t come to Kansas respecting who we are, and acting appropriately. I don’t know why but if feels like we are putting a lot of trust in these elites and we will have no time to vet them later. What we get is what we get.
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@drgnslayr Yep, when we got Xavier and Selby, they were both the icing on an already great veteran team. I think it changed with the Wiggins class. Maybe if we don’t get anybody more this year, the post players can develop that chip that you talk about. Last time I was worried about not having good recruits was when Morri left. That team turned out pretty good.
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My acid test for OAD’s is still the way they announce.
Wigs had a private announcement with family, friends and one reporter from the local WV newspaper I think. He only stayed one year with mixed team results but carried himself w class.
Cliff had a hat ceremony with the not so funny hat switcharoo and we all know how his time ended in Larry.
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There may be something to your acid test.
The way players announce definitely gives a statement about where there head is at… focused on themselves, or others.
