I’ll bet Eric Bledsoe, one of the more highly recruited prep basketball players in the nation, is feeling pretty stupid today. The 6-1 point guard signed a letter of intent on May 6 with the University of Kentucky, picking the Wildcats over the University of Memphis.
On Tuesday, Bledsoe found out he’ll be second fiddle to the nation’s most prized recruit, point guard John Wall, who chose the Wildcats over several schools, including Memphis.
Bledsoe’s recruitment heated up after former Memphis coach John Calipari took over the head coaching duties at Kentucky. Many considered Bledsoe to be leaning toward Memphis prior to Calipari’s departure.
New Memphis coach Josh Pastner pursued Bledsoe vigorously, intending to sell him on the fact Memphis is in need of quality players since Calipari stole the nation’s best recruiting class away from the Tigers.
Bledsoe apparently wasn’t interested playing for a team that was decimated by Calipari’s departure. Given that Bledsoe signed with Kentucky before Wall made his decision, I can only imagine the sales job Calipari did on him.
Bledsoe might like to believe he’ll have a chance to lead the Wildcats to glory next season, but those are merely pipe dreams. Wall is the man and Calipari has known it from day one, making him the top priority of the Tigers recruiting efforts while he was the head coach at Memphis.
While it’s understandable that Bledsoe wanted to play for the Wildcats since Calipari became head coach, the realities were always clear cut. He obviously didn’t know what those realities were, but he’s going to find out when practice begins in October.
At that time, Wall will be standing at the top of the key as the Wildcats starting point guard, and Bledsoe will be on the second team hoping to get at least 10 minutes of playing time per game.
Meanwhile, a few hundred miles south in Memphis, Willie Kemp or Roburt Sallie will be the Tigers starting point guard, a position that could have easily been Bledsoe’s to lose.
Instead, Bledsoe will have to earn playing time, much less get a realistic shot at the starting point guard position at UK. Any thoughts of substantial playing time and possibly entering the NBA draft after one season are all but gone.
In fact, it’s entirely possible Bledsoe will become an afterthought among the nation’s best recruiting class, once belonging to Memphis but now residing in Lexington.
Bledsoe will learn the grass isn’t always greener, or in Kentucky’s case, bluer. He’s about to be blue alright, blue from the fact he made the wrong decision to attend Kentucky.
Why would he feel stupid? He’s a member of the greatest college recruiting class in history and will be playing at the hottest name in college basketball right now. You Memphis fans need to thank Calipari for all that he did for your program and stop being jerks.
Wow, I never knew a player (Eric Bledsoe) that didn’t want to get some playing time, especially when he came out of the High School SpotLight. That many STARS on one team and many that expect to be “one and done”, would usually lead to bitterness and strife (just like most NBA teams). This coming season will be fun to watch as a team of future NBAers will be meshed together into the 2010 National Champions. Calipari will have to be the best juggler since the painted up clown from the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
Coach Cal
What a pal!
“You’ll start,
Cross my heart!”
Bledsoe sold
into the fold.
Promised the moon,
but very soon…
Bledsoe cried,
’cause coach lied.
Suckered again,
by Cal’s sly grin.
New starter Wall,
bring up the ball,
While Bledsoe sits,
Ain’t it the Sh*ts?!!!
Thank you Calipari for all that you did at Memphis. You are a fantastic recruiter! It’s too bad that you’re not that good of a coach or we would have a NC. UK congrats! You have assembled the best team in the nation on paper. In a few months the ball will actually bounce and things will have to be played out on the court. And things will probably bounce your way for the majority of the season. You might even make a deep run into the tournament. Oh but there’s one piece you’re missing. A good floor coach. I guess all of the media that has crowned UK 2010 national champs forgot there are other teams out there with just as much talent. Oh……..and those teams have one other thing too……..coaches who know how to coach the game.
Calipari will use anyone and anything – including Kentucky as a stepping stone to benefit him. Calipari could care less about the actual school or its fans – this is the University of Calipari. Kentucky fans will learn soon enough….
Hey Tony,
MEMPHIS FANS need to stop being jerks? Yeah, we’re sorry we’re being jerks. We’re sorry we claimed that we weren’t going anywhere and wanted to be in Memphis AFTER we began talks with another school (oh wait, that was CAL). We’re sorry we used the time we were supposedly waffling on the decision to call the Memphis recruits and tell them to go to Kentucky while we still could(no, wait, that was Cal again. BTW, anyone else notice that he made up his mind just in time for Sportscenter and the 5 o’clock news?). We’re sorry that we said that we wanted “Memphis recruits to stay in Memphis” all the while recruiting them to come to Kentucky (Nope, Cal again). Oh yeah, that whole “If you hire Tony Barbee as coach, I’ll leave you some players” thing, that was our fault too (wait, Cal again). It was, of course, Memphis fans who left the program without even telling some of the coaching staff(Strength coach Richard Hogans is STILL waiting to hear from Cal)…
Memphis fans are sorry for all of that….except it isn’t us that should be sorry.
The only thing I WON’T apologize for is no longer have to defend (in the words of many UK fans over the past several years) our “thug” program with it’s “snake oil salesman” coach. Congrats, he’s all yours now.
As an Auburn fan I don’t have much of a dog in this hunt. That being said,
To all the Kentucky fans… oh, please!
This kid (Bledsoe) wants to be a rich NBA star. He wants to get to the league ASAP. He does not care about Kentucky, Memphis, Kansas, or any other program (or college basketball in general).
From that perspective (getting to the NBA ASAP) he made a poor decision. There is no other way to look at it.
Yes, of course. There’s no way 2 great guards can co-exist on one team. what a crazy concept. Of course, as you have so aptly illustrated in the past (link removed) you have your finger on the pulse of all things basketball and it would be foolish to suggest otherwise.
Think Wayne Turner when you think about Eric Bledsoe, not Derrick Rose. Turner was a McDonald’s All American type, but played a role on the 1996 UK team that one the title. In 1997 he stepped up and played a bit more, but by 1998 he was the man, winning a national title as a starter. He went to the Elite 8 again in 1999 and ended his career as one of the winningest players in NCAA history.
Bledsoe was NEVER going to be a one and done player and he knew that. I don’t see why a top point guard all of a sudden needs a guaranteed starting spot in order to pick a school. Bledsoe wanted to be at UK so that’s where he’ll be. Besides, I think it will be better preparation for the next level for him going up against John Wall every day that it would be to start from day one in C-USA.
I totally agree with Tony, and as far as Chris’s comments about Cal’s coaching abilities go, Calipari can’t shoot free throws for his players. He did give memphis a national championship, only they gave it right back at the line in the biggest choke job in the history of the final game. Enough with the bitterness already.
Bledsoe might get to play if Wall gets hurt. Otherwise, he’s a bench sitter this year. Cal’s already got another PG in the recruiting pipeline, so Bledsoe’s a bench sitter next year, too. Maybe, just maybe, he get’s to play in his junior season (assuming he stays at KY, and assuming Cal doesn’t recruit over him then too). You can’t blame Calipari for wanting an insurance policy in case something happens to one of the real star players, but Bledsoe has most likely ps’d away any chance he had of being a star himself.
Corey, did you even WATCH the national championship game? Memphis’ blowing a 9 point lead with two minutes left had to do with a lot more than missing 3 free throws. Yes, riding the bench behind John Wall is a MUCH better way to prepare you for the NBA, right Derrick Rose? Bledsoe has been told that once Wall is gone, he’ll be the man, except that Cal already has one of WWW’s “guys” to plug in at point guard next year. Ask Willie Kemp how this ends up working.
If you UK fans knew HALF the games Cal played over the 47-72 hours while he was planning his departure, you would understand more the type of person you’ve just gotten as a coach.
Yeah, Guy…
Which NBA career do you think Eric Bledsoe hopes to emulate?
Wayne Turner
BOS 99/00, 3 gms, 41 min, 4 pts, Salary $30,000
Derrick Rose
CHI 08/09, 88 gms, 3313 min, 1499 pts, Salary $4.82 million
Also, the 1996 UK team never ‘one’ the title, but they are indeed the team that WON the title. You must be a KY grad…
Vandy actually, just a poor proofreader is all.
andy, let’s review, shall we? with two minutes left in the championship game, memphis is up by 9 points. kansas begins to foul memphis, knowing that this is their only shot at a comeback as memphis has been notoriously terrible from the line all season (they finished the title game 63% from the line). true to form, memphis misses four out of five free throws and only scores three points over the final two minutes and change while allowing twelve. if they had made ONE of these free throws, then they win the game. if giving up a nine point lead with two minutes to play due to an inability to make free throws is not a choke job, then i don’t know what is.
I understand the temptation to say, “Cal didn’t shoot the free throws, so you can’t blame him.”
This is overlooking one key point:
Cal was supposed to be responsible for their development, even from the foul-line. How can Memphis’s free-throw-woes not fall on Cal? Or is someone willing to argue that the Memphis was a team full of Shaqs, a team that was physically incapable of being any better from the foul-line.
Plus, there is the issue of the decision to not foul in the closing seconds. That’s squarely on Cal.
eric, i do think that the argument that not deciding to foul in the last few seconds was a bad call holds a lot of water. however, there are very few coaches in the country who follow that logic. i have never understood why that is the case, and i think it is quite stupid. however, for whatever reason, that seems to be the generally accepted philosophy among coaches, so it’s not like this was cal being cavalier and going against the grain. not necessarily a good defense of this by any stretch, but it was hardly a shocking decision either.
as far as the free throw shooting is concerned, i strongly disagree. how do you teach a player to shoot free throws? it’s not like this is something that they did not work on, they were just bad at it. i don’t think the idea of “a team of shaqs” is really that far off. and again, had they made these free throws then the decision to foul at the end would have been completely moot. i’m not trying to argue that cal is completely blameless in the loss, but the fact of the matter is that no matter how well a coach schemes the players still have to execute and memphis simply did not.
furthermore, to argue that calipari is not a good coach on the floor is absolutely ridiculous. we’re talking about a man that took not one but two programs (along with umass) from relative obscurity to national prominence in a very short time span. the man is one of the best coaches in college basketball today. is he a jerk? probably. arrogant? yup. does anybody argue that guys like rick pitino and bob knight were bad coaches due to their personality? not if they know anything about basketball. anyways, my point in my previous post was simply that memphis’s lack of execution was what eventually cost them the national title. if the free throw shooting doesn’t do it for you, then take a look at their shooting percentages in the overtime period.
Corey,
Yes, let’s review. Cal slowed the game down with two minutes left and a nice lead against one of the most athletic teams in the nation and allowed them to come back. However, you’re right, it was all on the players and no blame can be assigned to the coach.
As far as bringing Memphis out of relative obscurity, Memphis had been a top 5 team less than 5 years before Cal took over and had put out two lottery picks in four years. Memphis isn’t on the level of UK, UNC, etc., but to say it is was a program is obscurity tells me you don’t know what’s going on outside of Lexington.
As far as who’s playing against what talent, I can tell you that Memphis will not be in CUSA much longer…..and that Kentucky’s CUSA record leaves a bit to be desired.
Y’all will find out about Cal soon enough.
You are both correct. Memphis players DID choke, Coach Cal is not much of a floor coach. That game against Kansas was not the only game where Coach Cal stood there with his thumb up and watched his team lose.
One of a Coach’s Jobs is deciding when to take a TO and get a little calm down time, when to order an intentional and when to get a “T”. Calipari recruits, and he sells the program better then almost anyone. But when the game starts, he just rolls the ball out and enjoys the best seat in the house.
Memphis lost the NC in OVERTIME. Why weren’t the guys ready for the OT? Somebody got the gayhawks ready for OT. Somebody didn’t get the Tigers ready for OT.
KU isn’t going to the Final Four this year. Sorry, but the Dribble Drive is a VERY complex offense. It just looks like confusion. Players that don’t understand it get lost in it. That is what happened to Willie Kemp, who was as highly rated as Rose coming out of HS.
Rose and ‘reke were able to function in the DD because they had other guys on the floor who knew what was going on. KU won’t even win the SEC this year. Memphis will go farther in the tourney this year then KU.
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