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For top basketball recruits, the ‘It’ that is happening here is Rick Pitino.
The University of Louisville draws some of the best players in the nation because it offers a coach who prepares them for a professional career and prime time opportunity that gets more airtime than McDreamy singing on American Idol.
Unfortunately, Cardinal Nation is suffering the recession of this luxury.
Sophomore forward Derrick Caracter has already declared for the draft and has no intentions of coming back, while sophomore forward Earl Clark and junior forward Terrence Williams will ‘test’ the NBA waters.
With the graduation of centers David Padgett and Terrence Farley and forward Juan Palacios and the departure of Caracter and possible parting of ways with Williams and Clark, the Cardinals are set to lose a lot of production and height.
If everyone leaves, Lee Steiden, a freshman guard who averaged 0.5 minutes per game, will be the tallest returning player at 6-foot-4. Even worse, the Cardinals will lose 58.1 ppg with the departure of four of their top five leading scorers.
The three players with NBA aspirations came to U of L with a goal similar to other students. Get a job they love and make a lot of money while they’re at it. Now they have the opportunity to cash in their paycheck of blood, sweat and tears to the professional level.
The first pick of the 2008 NBA draft is guaranteed $4,019,000 in his first year, while the 30th pick is still guaranteed $797,600, according to NBAdraft.net. Second round picks are not guaranteed any sort of contract.
Offer me a job for a fraction of the price of the 30th pick in the NBA and I will trade in all the glory, autograph requests and fame around campus that comes from being the sports editor for The Louisville Cardinal faster than you can put on a Memphis Grizzlies jersey.
People point to the opportunity to receive an education as a reason to stay. Those types need to realize that Pitino is the highest paid professor at U of L.
In Pitino’s book, “Success is a Choice,” he said all he wants in his players is a PHD. He wants them to be poor, as in always learning, hungry and driven.
Caracter only received his bachelor’s, because all he was is hungry. For that, he will pay rather than be paid. NBA analyst Chad Ford said there is a good chance he might not get drafted.
Clark, who was Caracter’s roommate, got his PHD. He corrected his issues that kept him out of the biggest rivalry game of the year and shined on college basketballs brightest stage. His 14.5 ppg and 8.3 rpg while shooting 62.2 from the field during the tournament, with an increased ability to rebound and a thicker frame, made him Pitino’s Valedictorian.
Most important of all, Pitino’s honesty with his players keeps students who scored high on the BAP (basketball aptitude test), like Samardo Samuels and Terrence Jennings, who think they have a shot at the NBA, coming to U of L to get their education.
