LEXINGTON, Ky. _ The recruiting roller coaster that has wound its way through the John Calipari era of Kentucky basketball has taken fans on quite a ride.
Those who pay close attention to such things have enjoyed more than their fair share of recruiting victories. But, oh, how so many of those losses on the trail have stung Big Blue Nation.
Of course, any list highlighting the biggest recruiting misses of Calipari's tenure is dependent on extrapolation and guesswork. If one of the players on this list had indeed chosen Kentucky, it's unknown what kind of ripple effect that could have had. Perhaps prospects that ended up at UK wouldn't have. Perhaps the overall impact of other Wildcats would've drastically changed. It's impossible to truly know what might have been had any of these recruitments panned out differently.
These weren't necessarily the most hurtful recruiting losses at the time, though that was certainly one factor in this ranking process. Ultimately, these are the high school recruitments (no grad transfers allowed) that the Wildcats seemed to have a realistic shot to win, and _ had they gone in Kentucky's favor _ could have drastically changed the program's fortunes for the better.
UK was seen as the possible favorite for every player on this list at one time in his recruitment. But, as Calipari often says, Kentucky isn't for everybody, and he can't get them all.
