Kentucky's Rare Miss on Five Top Recruits

With Kentucky returning Tyler Ulis, Alex Poythress, and Marcus Lee plus adding über-talented incoming freshmen Skal Labissiere, Isaiah Briscoe, and Charles Matthews, the Wildcats were tabbed as a super-early pre-season #1.

But that was predicated on the belief that UK would add to that incoming class during the month of April.

Well, here's what happened in April.

The five top prospects from which Kentucky could have landed three did this:

Stephen Zimmerman went to UNLV. Cheick Diallo became a Kansas Jayhawk. Malik Newman packed his bags for Starkville, Mississippi where he will immediately become Mississippi State's best player in years. Brandon Ingram headed to Duke and Jaylen Brown to Berkeley where he will become a California Golden Bear.

Yeah, it's odd. John Calipari usually gets his pick of the litter.

What I haven't seen, though, are typically overly hyperbolic college hoops analysts sounding the alarm or hiring a bugler to play Taps.

Maybe they get that what Calipari will have next season is a little more typical of the sport. He'll have what he really does prefer: something akin to a seven-man rotation.

No more of this platoon nonsense. He even suggested that that is what has hurt his recruiting this spring.

He sees the value in having blue chip recruits expect to spend at least 30 minutes on the floor in a game.

I can see it, too.

And for that reason, I can see a bright future.