By LARRY VAUGHT
Jay Bilas can still remember the reaction from Kentucky fans when he said that UK basketball didn’t produce pros but instead recruits pros. The ESPN analysts recalls a lot of UK fans getting “their noses out of joint” for his belief the first time he expressed it.
“That’s not a knock on anybody. That’s true of every program. In six, eight months of being on a campus, whether it’s Kentucky’s or anybody else’s, there’s only so much that you can do,” Bilas said.
He knows the theory some had recently was that Tyler Herro became a NBA draft lottery pick and playoff sensation for the Miami Heat because of what he learned in one season at UK.
“I just don’t believe that’s completely true. Of course, coaching matters and coaches help players get better. But Tyler Herro has been a pro a lot longer than he was ever a college player,” Bilas said. “How much credit do the Miami Heat get for their coaching staff and their developmental group?”
Bilas knows Kentucky coach John Calipari and other college coaches have to market and sell their programs. He has no problem with that.
“I word things differently. I don’t think programs produce pros. I think they recruit pros. It doesn’t mean they don’t make players better. Of course, programs do that and coaches do that,” Bilas said. “Everybody does this: you wind up comparing players to their predecessors. So you wind up comparing a Kentucky guard now to Kentucky guards in the past several years.”
Even though there are not media guides this year due to COVID-19, Bilas said those publications all had long sections at major schools promoting NBA players from their programs.
“You have these huge portions of these media guides that sell that. So the idea is if you get recruited by Kentucky, you’re pro-caliber,” Bilas said. “And that’s the mindset. That’s not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing. It’s business and there’s nobody better at this business than John (Calipari).”
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