It was a great read and for me it shows the influence Dean had with Roy. "Play hard, play smart, and play together" was the corner stone of what Dean built and paid forward to his coaching tree, the strongest branch being that of our current coach Roy Williams.
But in saying that, times have changed, kids don't seem to have the same ingrained "it is all about the team more so than me personally" mindset. IT has become more about individual glory, building their personal brand, and getting to pay for play as soon as possible ready or not.
I think much of this is because these kids, especially the extra talented ones are playing in so many different leagues, on so many different teams, year round. These kids switch teams and schools like many folks change under wear, maybe playing for 1 AAU team today and tomorrow suit up for some other team. It kinda goes from my team to the team I am playing on today. Now we see NCAA looking at changing rulings so the switch teams paradyn can occur easier, NBA rules funneling kids to the NBA sooner than ready by rookie salary caps and one & done rules.
Just this morning I read Pitino is convinced the one & done is going away in 2yrs allowing kids once again the ability to by pass college and we all know how often they change teams at the pro level.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nca...drafting-high-schoolers-in-2-years/ar-AArZ2Em
What Roy recruits for, the commitment to team is getting harder to find and may be reflected in some of our recruiting classes being less steller than many fans want but ya can't argue against the results, we are the current NCAA champs by the way!
Forgive me for waxing back to the days where kids played for their high school for 4yrs, then committed to their college of choice where they played most of 4yrs, those used to be the grounds where commitment to team was forged because kids had that singular team well fixed within them and they played for their brothers for those 4 yrs. They may not have been as athletic as kids are now days but they played hard, they played smarter, and they played together. They learned the game, they listened to their coaches, and they did NOT think they already knew more than their coach when they were freshmen. These kids may be great athletes and they may be able to do amazing things individually but last I heard basketball was supposed to be a team sport, to often it seems to be running counter to that...
