@BShark
I am with you and @wissox. Conspiracies are for suckers, as @wissox already said. I can reinforce what he wrote even WITHOUT my java.
What appears to be being done to shaft KU on recruiting, if it in fact were being done, would apparently be being done entirely legally, i.e., without actionable conspiracy, or KU would have taken legal action, right? We are talking about a KUAD with television, gate and Petroshoeco Endorsement revenues of considerable size and import to Self, KUAD and KU. There appears no way that KU would knowingly tolerate a conspiracy that threatened its revenues by starving it of crucial recruits at the 1 and 5, if it were legally possible to bring action to eliminate that risk.
Its so simple in some ways.
THERE. APPEARS. TO. BE. NO. CONSPIRACY. TO. SHAFT. KU. RECRUITING. AT. THE. 1. AND. 5.
KU recruiting appears to be being shafted legally, if at all, based on an appearance of a shortfall of 5-star 1s and 5s the last 8 years, when compared with the appearance at other elite programs.
I don't know why this appearance is so hard for persons to process.
I don't understand why so many wish to explain it naively as a conspiracy, or perhaps even more naively as just random occurrence, or perhaps most naively of all, as a product of KU's inclement winter weather. Doesn't anyone notice how improbable those explanations appear after 8-9 years? OMG!
FWIW, Kentucky has never been down to six credible D1 players that I recall, except when those six were all OADs/TADs and even then UK had enough back ups to rest them, when fouled up, suffering wear and tear, or just in need of a blow. Oh, and that 2012 UK champion had an OAD 1 and an OAD 5. And I'm not talking here about the peak dump truck years of UK and Duke, when they were 10+- deep in OAD/TADs either. I'm talking about their 8-year averages at the 1 and 5 versus KU's 8-year average at the 1 and 5--arguably the most decisive positions year in and year out for winning rings.
No other elite program I can recall has gone through a comparable extended drought of OAD/5-star 1s and 5s that Self and KU have gone through, since winning the ring in 2008, while winning 82-84% of their games afterwards. Not one. We're not talking here about Coach K, or Cal, or Roy, having a rare off year, because a top player got injured, or some guys jumped earlier than expected, or a scandal scared a few recruits away once season. We're talking a nearly 9 year drought of OAD 1s and 5s, and really not even any 5-star 1s and 5s, unless you consider Selby a 1, which Self did not, and the guy was hardly a lottery choice after KU!!!
And the two 5-star 1s Self has reportedly signed for next season? Based on Self's experience with recent 5-star 5s like Alexander, Diallo and Preston (so far), what does anyone think the chances really are that both of his 5-star point guards that broke his 5-star drought either: a.) become OADs; or b.) actually both arrive and start, or even play 20 mpg next season? Self apparently signed Charlie Moore--a third PG--for insurance. Why? Self is not stupid. It appears he understood that the chances of signing both 5-star 1s was slim, given his shortfall since 2008, and that them showing up, getting cleared, and having no baggage was another significant risk.
I don't really see Self having signed Alexander, Diallo and Preston, who barely impacted KU at all, as having broken the drought. I see them for what they appear to have been--5-stars with baggage--enough baggage to impair their abilities to contribute in a big way to KU basketball the way most other elite programs' OAD 1s and OAD 5s have impacted their programs most of the time over the last 8-9 years. (Note: it is still too soon to say what will come of the Billy Preston situation. Hopefully, he is situation will turn out to be a terrible misunderstand and signal a turn of the tide, but so far, had not played any regular season games that I recall, and it is now January.)
I also don't really see one recruiting class of signing two 5-star 1s that haven't even shown up and played a second of D1, as proof positive that the drought has broken either, do you? They are light, but is it baggage train approaching, or a the wide open spaces of recruiting symmetry at the 1 and 5?
We have to get board rats past this bogus notion of conspiracies.
Conspiracies really are often for suckers. The CIA has been proving that since Judicial Watch, or whomever, showed that The Company started meming "conspiracy" back at the time of the Warren Commission through its apparently controlled media. We've got to stop acting like mind controlled sheep and start acting like responsible free men and women trying to govern ourselves and trying to understand our world rationally. We have to start dealing with at least the appearance of reality again in politics AND sports, rather than ignoring the appearance of reality, and instead resorting to these silly reductions of discourse to characterization as either being conspiracy or not conspiracy.
A mind, as the United Negro College Fund used to say, is a terrible thing to waste.
CONSPIRACIES ARE FOR SUCKERS.
CONSPIRACIES ARE FOR SUCKERS.
CONSPIRACIES ARE FOR SUCKERS.
Its the appearance of legal strategies that everyone has to begin recognizing, focusing on, evaluating, and exploring possible feasible counter strategies to, in order to get on with building KU Basketball to be the best it can be.
Rock Chalk!
Oddly, I find myself locked out of editing my post, so I have taken the liberty of editing it in this fashion. I want to emphasize that the situation with Billy Preston is unresolved and that his situation hopefully WILL turn out to have been a misunderstanding and Preston, a Jayhawk and a player of great promise, could turn out to be a drought breaker for KU's efforts to sign OAD/5-star caliber players. Each game that the camera's show Billy Preston sitting at the game, I see exactly the kind of player KU needs in the paint and a player that appears a credit to his team. I really admired his mom coming out in his defense and pointing out that she could have removed him from the team back in November, when all of this stuff surfaced, but that in paraphrase they are standup persons that wished to deal with this situation honorably and with good faith to KU. This appears the kind of parent and player that KU needs to associate with and to attract to the program. For their sakes, I hope this all works out for the best for them and for KU.
