Wired Wednesday With Wilson 5th Edition
In this week’s column I discussed what the Virginia Cavaliers are getting in 2019 Justin McKoy, my thoughts on the one and done rule and why there should be no worry in Lexington about the incoming freshman coming in to…
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Continue ReadingIn this week’s column I discussed what the Virginia Cavaliers are getting in 2019 Justin McKoy, my thoughts on the one and done rule and why there should be no worry in Lexington about the incoming freshman coming in to play at Kentucky.
“UVA’s latest ’19 commit, Justin McKoy, was getting interest/offers from school’s like UNC, Tenn, and NCSU despite his relatively low ranking. What are the Hoos getting? How much of this interest was late season flyers from major programs vs late development for the HS senior” – @MemGym
Tony Bennett and his staff landed 2019 Justin McKoy fresh off their national championship win and eventually chose the Cavaliers over NC State and North Carolina. McKoy will bring a lot of strength and a high basketball IQ to Charlottesville. He plays extremely hard and gives 100 percent on offense and defense. He is a combo forward that will most likely be used at the 3 and 4 during his time at Virginia. He is a skilled player that has a nice jump-shot and can get to the basket well too and score. I think in the long run he is going to be a guy that Coach Bennett can rely heavily on for good defense as that is a standard for Virginia.
During his senior season he averaged 24 points and 10 rebounds and eventually turned into a late bloomer while developing late which is why we saw so many high major programs hop on him when he announced to re-open his recruitment after he originally gave a commitment to Penn State.
“Where do you stand on the one-and-done rule and how do you think it would affect college basketball if eliminated” – @tmarkh757
This has always been a popular debate in the college basketball world, as well as the NBA. What I do know is that the one and done rule is going to be gone in the next few years. What I don’t know is the exact date.
In my opinion there are very few guys each year that are ready to head straight into the NBA after they complete high school. When the rules changes, I am worried about kids making the wrong decision thinking they can head straight to the league out of high school. Many prospects need college to develop. A lot of people don’t understand how good you have to be to be able to make a NBA team this is also another reason why there are only two rounds in the NBA draft, as the rosters are not that big and there is a ton of turnover in the league. I would say there are maybe an at max of 8 kid maybe even fewer per high school graduation class that are ready to play in the NBA after high school. Some classes are different but in the long run a lot of these kids need a year of college to develop.
When it comes to the success of a college program, programs need upperclassmen. We ever rarely see a program with all one and done guys getting the majority of minutes win the national championship. The two programs that have had the must one and done’s recently have been Kentucky and Duke. Kentucky’s most recent title was in 2012 and had three one and done’s but upperclassmen playing heavy minutes. In 2015 Duke won the national championship with three one and done’s but also with upperclassmen playing a good amount of minutes and Grayson Allen who ended up being a 4 year guy.
Like I mentioned, this rule is going to change and we are going to see kids jump straight from high school to the NBA and it will work out for a handful of kids and the rest of the kids that go to college are going to be the kids that know they need time to develop and want to play in passionate collegiate basketball games.
“Any concern for Kentucky having the 5th best recruiting class being as they usually place in the top 1-3?” – @edwards_wes
Right now Kentucky has four commits in the 2019 class being small forward Kahlil Whitney, shooting guard Tyrese Maxey, another forward in Keion Brooks and guard/forward Dontaie Allen. These are four commits that are currently ranked top 70 in the class of 2019 so I would not say concern is the correct word to use. They are also heavily involved with unsigned senior Jaden McDaniels. They have two point guards coming back in Ashton Hagans and Immanuel Quickley so the lead guard spot is in good shape. Tyrese Maxey will be starting at the shooting guard position with the small forward position most likely being filled by Whitney. I see EJ Montgomery starting at the four who was a top 10 recruit out of high school. At center they picked up a huge piece in Bucknell transfer Nate Sestina. With all of these names and talent, there should be absolutely no need to have any concern in Lexington as John Calipari will have a preseason top 5 team looking to cut the nets down next April in Atlanta.