John Clay is a sports columnist for the Lexington Herald-Leader. A native of Central Kentucky and graduate of UK, he covered UK football for 13 seasons before being promoted to columnist in 2000. He lives in Lexington with his wife and two sons. You can e-mail him at jclay@herald-leader.com.
2 quick thoughts:
1. Of the number ones on those lists, only North Carolina did something with that class.
2. Counting UK this year, Coach Cal’s teams are on 4 of the 5 lists. No other coach can say that.
With the caveat that these rankings are highly debatable and subjective, it is an interesting table (that should probably list the top 15 to be more comprehensive and comparable). If one looks only at the 7 schools that have managed to be ranked 3 or 4 times in the last 5 years (Kan,Mem,OhioSt, Duke,Ville,UNC,Uconn), they’ve all been active “early NBA entry” victims over that period. The truth is, it is almost impossible to be a consistent member of this exclusive club without rapidly turning your roster over. If this list didn’t also contain the names of all the last 5 national champions, one might wonder “so what?”. The truth is, without at leat two NBA first or second round-type talents on your team any given year, your chances of winning a title are very slim…and that has been a consistent variable for the last 10 years. Secondarily, just surrounding two very good players with a cast of role players doesn’t ensure an F4 appearance either (see UK with Morris and Rondo as an example), one must have top 100 talent throughout their roster to compete year after year. Finally, had Calipari stayed at Memphis, his school and UConn would be the only teams to have cracked the top 10 4/5 years…an incredible feat, regardless of whether they ever won a national championship.
Zagsblog reports that Wall id down to 2 - UK and Miami
Wall’s AAU coach is already shooting that down. http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/demling/2009/05/john-wall-chatter.html
UCONN was on list 4 of 5 years, so Calhoun can say it. But Cal did it at 2 different schools,so maybe a better accomplishment
I stand corrected, Troy. Perhaps more accurately, I sit corrected.