Calipari is trying to recreate past recruiting glory. These are the players he needs.
John Calipari all but said it out loud during his final radio appearance of the disastrous 2020-21 season a couple of months ago.
Kentucky basketball is at a crossroads.
Calipari used the word “unacceptable” several times in that last radio show, reflecting on the Wildcats’ 9-16 season and promising it wouldn’t happen again. Changes are coming, he implied then. Change has arrived.
The addition of Illinois assistants Orlando Antigua and Chin Coleman to the UK coaching staff Thursday sends a crystal-clear signal: Calipari is trying to recapture the recruiting successes that the Wildcats’ program enjoyed during his first few years in Lexington.
It’s not that Kentucky has been bad on the recruiting trail in recent cycles. Far from it. The Cats landed the nation’s No. 1 class just last year. They’ve remained a revolving door for NBA Draft picks, and they’re still getting top high school prospects every year.
They’re just not getting the game-changers — the rare few in each recruiting class — that they routinely attracted to Lexington at the beginning of the Calipari era.
Antigua was an integral part of Calipari’s staff for the UK coach’s first five seasons. During that time, Kentucky signed nine top-five national recruits: John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins, Brandon Knight, Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Nerlens Noel, Julius Randle, Andrew Harrison and Karl-Anthony Towns. (Not to mention Eric Bledsoe, Terrence Jones, Willie Cauley-Stein, Aaron Harrison, Devin Booker, Tyler Ulis and a host of others).
Those players formed the core of four Final Four teams and a national champion.
Since Antigua left Lexington for the top job at South Florida in 2014, the Cats have signed two top-five recruits: Skal Labissiere and Brandon Boston Jr. Neither lived up to expectations.
Now, Antigua wasn’t the primary recruiter for all of those top signees from 2009 to 2014, and even the most celebrated assistant will tell you that, when it gets down to commitment time, it’s the head coach that matters most. Especially when that head coach is John Calipari.
But there’s no debating that Antigua’s presence and persistence helped get a bunch of those kids in a Kentucky uniform. He’s arguably the best recruiter of the Calipari era, which would make him the best recruiter in the modern history of the program.
The dynamic of Antigua, Coleman — another celebrated recruiter with extensive ties to the Nike circuit and the basketball-rich Chicago area — and up-and-coming assistant coach Jai Lucas should make for one of the best tandems on the trail once things open up again this summer.
There’s no doubt about that.
There’s also no ignoring the reality of the situation.
Kentucky’s recruiting rivals
The college basketball landscape in 2021 looks far different than it did a decade ago, when Antigua and Calipari and Kenny Payne were pulling in top-five recruits left and right.
Kentucky no longer has the market cornered on one-and-done prospects, as they did then.
While UK’s “cool factor” with top-ranked recruits hasn’t waned much over the past few years — despite no Final Fours since 2015 and no top-five NBA Draft picks since 2016 — the legitimate (and lucrative) paths for those players has certainly expanded since Antigua’s first go-around.
The G League’s developmental path is now viable, along with other overseas professional options.
Current NBA Rookie of the Year favorite LaMelo Ball and first-round draft pick RJ Hampton went that route in 2019. Four five-star recruits — led by likely top-five draft picks Jalen Green and Jonathan Kuminga — did the same last year. Longtime UK target Jaden Hardy is expected to announce a similar move this month. Emoni Bates — long considered the top basketball prospect in the country — will almost certainly do the same.
These are the types of game-changers Kentucky was getting on a regular basis when Antigua was last with the program. These are the types of recruits that almost certainly would have been legitimate options for the Cats if they’d been playing high school ball 10 years ago. These are the types of players UK needs to land to have Final Four-type seasons, if longterm roster continuity isn’t in the cards.
And, now, these types of players are going elsewhere.
Things have changed on the college side of things, as well.
Along with the influx of programs going after one-and-done players, college basketball has been reshaped — but not reformed — by the federal government’s 2017 investigation into corruption in the sport.
That investigation became public nearly four years ago. In the time since, there have been few tangible consequences. It took Arizona’s Sean Miller a full four seasons to get fired from his post (and only after on-the-court results dipped considerably). Other head coaches who were caught on tape talking about paying recruits or otherwise ensnared in the feds’ corruption bust are still carrying on at the same schools. And they’re still landing top-ranked recruiting classes and high-impact transfers.
If anything, the cheating scandal — and the relative lack of repercussions — has emboldened college programs, in many cases, to do what’s necessary to land the top recruits in each class.
How do you sign the game-changers in an environment like that?
We’re about to find out.
Calipari didn’t bring in Antigua and Coleman this week — or Lucas last year — to not go after the best of the best in high school basketball. When (or if) the NCAA actually institutes name, image and likeness reforms — allowing players to earn money while in college — Kentucky could be one of the biggest beneficiaries.
Until then, the Cats will be forced to recruit under the current circumstances.
It’ll be a challenge, for sure, and a different one from what Antigua faced the first time he came to Lexington. But it might not be long before Kentucky fans get a sense of the realistic expectations. If it’s game-changers Calipari wants, there are a few big ones in the next couple of recruiting classes.
Here are four recruits — all of whom have already been linked to both Kentucky and the pros — that could be immediate difference-makers at the college level. If UK can land even one of these players, perhaps there’s some hope of a return to the recruiting glory days.
Jalen Duren
Winning this recruitment would send the biggest message imaginable.
Jalen Duren — a 6-foot-10 post player from Philadelphia — was one of the first 2022 recruits to land a UK scholarship offer, and he’s arguably the best prospect in high school basketball. That label has belonged to Emoni Bates for the past couple of years, but there is a real chance that Duren will pass him up in the 2022 rankings soon. (Or, if Bates reclassifies to 2021, become the top-ranked 2022 prospect by default). Duren was named the MaxPreps.com national junior of the year and a First Team All-American after averaging 14.3 points, 8.4 rebounds and 2.2 blocks for star-studded Montverde (Fla.) Academy, leading that team to a national title.
He’s exactly the type of prospect the G League wants for its preps-to-pros program — there’s already a prediction in favor of the pros on his Crystal Ball page — and Duren could make a bundle if he played professionally before entering the NBA Draft. He’s also exactly the type of big man Calipari has had great success with in the past, and Kentucky will be among his top college choices. Michigan might also be a college team to watch here, with Juwan Howard making a major push in Duren’s recruitment while enjoying ample success on the court (Elite Eight appearance this season) and off (No. 1 recruiting class for 2021).
Chris Livingston
Another great example of a player who would have been at the top of Kentucky’s wish list a decade ago but might have other more enticing offers in the present. Chris Livingston is the No. 3 junior in the Rivals.com rankings — behind only Bates and Duren — and he averaged 31.1 points, 15.8 rebounds, 6.1 assists, 4.7 steals and 4.0 steals per game this past season.
Like everyone else on this list, Livingston — a highly athletic 6-foot-6 wing from Akron, Ohio — has been mentioned as a possible professional straight out of high school, but he’s still expected to go through the college recruiting process. He’ll have plenty of options. Both Kansas and North Carolina came through with scholarship offers this week, and Kentucky might not be too far behind them, once the coaching staff gets settled.
Keyonte George
Generally regarded as the No. 1 shooting guard prospect in the 2022 class, Keyonte George might end the cycle as one of the nation’s top five recruits. Wherever he’s placed in the final rankings, he’s certainly one of the best perimeter scorers in the country, something he’s proven at the highest levels of high school ball and has continued to show on the AAU circuit this spring.
If George goes the college route, Kentucky will be a top option. Texas, which has also put together a formidable staff of assistants under new head coach Chris Beard, is also expected to be a major player among college suitors, and the G League will continue to loom large throughout George’s recruitment.
DJ Wagner
This recruitment might be the biggest barometer for how successful Calipari and Kentucky can hope to be with the very top prospects in a new era of college basketball.
DJ Wagner — a 6-foot-3 point guard from Camden, N.J. — is the undisputed No. 1 overall recruit in the 2023 class, meaning he still has two more seasons of high school in front of him. As of now, his recruitment is being billed as a Kentucky vs. the pros battle.
Calipari’s ties to Wagner’s family are deep, well-chronicled and acknowledged in college basketball circles, to the point that many of the top programs probably won’t invest as much time and energy into his recruitment as they normally would under the assumption that — if he does go the college route — he’ll pick Kentucky.
Wagner’s father is Dajuan Wagner, who was Calipari’s first big recruit at Memphis, the original “one and done” in Calipari’s career, and someone who has continually praised the UK coach for putting players first over the past two decades. Wagner’s grandfather is former U of L standout Milt Wagner, who was once on Calipari’s staff at Memphis and remains close to the Kentucky coach. If there was ever a No. 1 recruit that Calipari should be able to land, it’s Wagner.
But, as the No. 1 recruit in his class and a presumed future NBA star at the point guard position, Wagner will also have lucrative professional options.
Wagner, who just turned 16 years old Tuesday, is already young for his 2023 class, so it seems highly unlikely he would be a reclassification candidate. That means Calipari — and Kentucky fans — will have a couple of more years before they find out whether he’ll play for the Wildcats.
By that time, we should know a lot more about UK’s overall recruiting trajectory.
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