On his weekly radio show on Monday night, John Calipari talked about a conversation he had with former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski on his podcast, which is set to be released later this week. While on, Calipari said he jokingly called out Coach K for copying him and adapting to the one-and-done rule.
“He said something about playing young players. I said, “Yeah, I’ve always done it. You copied us and then you started playing young players,'” Calipari said.
The evidence is there too. From Calipari’s first year at Kentucky in 2009 to 2016, Duke only signed two top-ten recruits in the same class twice, of eight recruiting classes. In that same span, Kentucky signed two or more top-ten players six times. In contrast, starting with the 2017 class to Coach K’s final recruiting class in 2022, Duke signed three top ten players in the same class three times over those six recruiting classes.
Duke’s recruiting success in that span coincided with when Kentucky was negatively recruited against for using the platoon method in 2014-15 and when the assistant recruiting level dropped as well.
Kentucky looks to have regained momentum starting with the 2023 recruiting class, signing the No. 1 class, featuring three players in the top six and five players in the top 50. Looking forward, Calipari has expressed his optimism and confidence for Kentucky over the next three recruiting classes.
As far as the rest of the podcast, Coach K complimented this year’s Kentucky squad, telling Cal, “‘I really like your team. They’re unselfish, they pass to one another, they create shots.’ He says, ‘Your big guys coming back are gonna make you a little bit different.'”
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