Good luck in Kentucky monk

[stillgreghog]

I’m a native Arkansan that has lived in Northern Kentucky for 18 years and I can tell you that the UK basketball fans are pathetic, they are only interested in the next recruiting class and whether or not a 5 star kid picks UK over Duke, North Carolina, Kansas or Arizona and to some point now UCLA. They live and die with the prospects of possibly winning another NCAA title or one of these other programs not winning a title. That’s the entire reason they finally hired Callipari even though he has had trouble at every program he has coached before with NCAA violations.

At the end of the day what type of bang are they getting for the 7.7million dollar man they decided to finally hire when they could’ve hired him earlier? I’d say really not that much, a few final fours and only the 1 Championship.
So, for those high profile recruits that sign up for this gig at UK and don’t hang a NCAA banner at Rupp Arena there season is considered a failure in the hearts and minds of most UK fans and never talked about again.

In Monks case, sure I would have initially preferred that he stayed at home and become a Razorback legend and helped our rebuilding process, but he decided to chose a different path where he knew he would be at a high profile program that regularly plays marquee games on the national stage every year and also plays before a packed Rupp Arena with extremely passionate fans.
However, having watched most of UK games while I saw a lot of raw natural talent by Monk on the court I also saw a player that has a lot of growing up to do personality wise and ultimately decided that he would not have been the type of high character young man that I would want in a Razorback uniform.

I would much rather have the two kids on the Florida roster, Allen and Leon as well as the freshman at Wichita State, Austin Reeves suit up for the Hogs than Monk any day of the week. I believe we should have pulled out all stops to get these kids.

Go Hogs!

Question for you: Of course if Monk becomes a huge NBA star, they UK fans will “claim him” and talk about him being a UK player. But lets say he has a good, nothing spectacular, but good NBA career. Do you think the UK fans will even remember his name in 10 years? I think not. Just my opinion.

[dfarris]

It’s like I stated in paragraph 3 of my previous post, if the team fails to hang a NCAA title banner in Rupp Arena then they aren’t talked about much, it’s simply, let’s get on to the next class to see if they can.

You have to understand, they don’t really celebrate SEC championships the same way that other schools and fan bases would if we win because they go into every season fully expecting to win the conference because more times than not they do.

Like any fan base, if for instance Monk goes on to be a great NBA star then some will point out that he went to UK just as they do with Wall, Cousins, etc.
The bigger point is this, how good of a coach is Callipari when he has consistently brought in the top recruiting class year after year and only won 1 National Championship in what 7 or 8 years now? I personally think that he is an complete and total “Smart Ass” that has been totally overrated as a coach.
He probably cost his team a real opportunity to win that game against UNC by not calling a time out as soon as Monk hit that 3 to tie the game and if you think back to his championship game with Memphis against Kansas a similar situation ended up with the same result due to his lack of in game decision making costing those kids a real opportunity to win a championship.
Basically, because of the program he is at he is able to attract 5 star recruits to sign and play for a “3 Star Coach”.

[montybrewster]

We don’t want you in Arkansas

Honestly, I’m much more disappointed in Marcus’ lack of loyalty to his alma mater than with Malik wanting to play for a legit contender. It’s not even the decision, but more the comments made by a supposed Hog legend.