It is a script with which Kentucky Wildcats basketball fans have become all too familiar.
On Tuesday, Kenny Payne, the new Louisville men’s basketball coach and ex-Kentucky assistant, announced that he was hiring former Cardinals star Milt Wagner as U of L’s new director of player development and alumni relations.
Subsequently, momentum has built among the recruiting geeks that Milt Wagner’s grandson, prized Camden, N.J., guard DJ Wagner, will forsake his longtime, perceived recruiting leader, UK, to follow his grandfather to U of L.
If that happens, it will be the third time in the past five years that Kentucky was thought to be in the driver’s seat for the No. 1-ranked prospect in the 24/7 Sports Composite Rankings — only to lose out when another school hired into a job someone closely connected to the player.
In the 2019 recruiting class, UK failed to land No. 1 prospect James Wiseman after Memphis named his high school coach, Penny Hardaway, as its new head man.
One year later, Kentucky saw Cade Cunningham slip away after Oklahoma State employed his brother, Cannen Cunningham, as an assistant.
If the 6-foot-3, 165-pound DJ Wagner ends up at Louisville, Kentucky and John Calipari will have hit .600 over the past five recruiting cycles in being on the wrong side of “friends and family plans” in recruiting battles for the consensus No. 1 prospect in the country.
That it is Calipari so consistently ending up in that position carries some irony.
Kentucky was thought to be the leader in DJ Wagner’s recruitment because Calipari coached the player’s father, Dajuan Wagner, in a one-and-done season (2001-02) at Memphis.
That came after Calipari brought Milt Wagner aboard as coordinator of basketball operations, a position he held from 2000 through 2006.
Later, Tyreke Evans was the one-and-done star of Calipari’s final Memphis team (2008-09). Lamont Peterson, Evans’ strength coach, had been hired as an administrative assistant by Calipari.
Of course, UK itself has some history with hiring people connected to players.
Bob Chambers, who had coached Kentucky forward Derrick Hord (1979-83) in high school in Bristol, Tennessee, ultimately spent three seasons (1980-83) working as an assistant on Joe B. Hall’s coaching staff.
Simeon Mars, who coached UK big man Jamaal Magloire (1996-2000) in high school, was hired by Rick Pitino — during his Blue phase — as an administrative assistant for 1996-97. Mars then spent three more seasons in the same role under Tubby Smith.
Once Magloire’s eligibility expired, Smith brought ex-UK player Reggie Hanson on in the administrative assistant role and Mars moved on.
The NCAA has tried to crack down on what are, rightly or wrongly, often perceived as “package deals” in men’s basketball recruiting by forbidding schools to hire people close to a prospect into non-coaching jobs.
NCAA Bylaw 11.4.2 states that “in men’s basketball, during a two-year period before a prospective student-athlete’s anticipated enrollment and during a two-year period after the prospective student-athlete’s actual enrollment, an institution shall not employ (or enter into a contract for future employment) an individual associated with a prospective student-athlete in any athletics department non-coaching staff position or in a strength and conditioning staff position.”
Since Milt Wagner was hired into a non-coaching role, it seems possible that Louisville will require a waiver from the NCAA in order to sign DJ Wagner.
U of L might contend, not unreasonably, that Payne would have hired Milt Wagner regardless of family recruiting implications.
The two were, after all, teammates on Denny Crum’s 1986 NCAA champions at Louisville and have remained close friends since.
Milt Wagner is one of U of L basketball’s all-time greats, having scored 1,836 points and doled out 432 assists while adorned in Cardinals’ red and black (1981-86).
Once Milt Wagner left Calipari and Memphis, he spent eight years as an assistant coach, four each at UTEP and Auburn, working under Tony Barbee.
The good news for frustrated UK backers — and, in this offseason of Kentucky basketball discontent, there are a lot of them — is that the recruiting nerds seem to feel Calipari and the Cats are in an increasingly strong position with lead guard Robert Dillingham, the No. 7 prospect in the 24/7 Sports Composite.
Still, if you aren’t ready to give up on UK and DJ Wagner, you can hold onto this:
In the 2011 recruiting cycle, Kentucky and Louisville were locked in an intense battle for Marquis Teague, a point guard from Pike High School in Indianapolis.
Pitino — now in his Red phase — tried to gain the upper hand by naming Pike assistant coach Shabaka Lands as “special assistant to the coach” at U of L.
Yet when it came time for pen to hit paper, Teague signed with Kentucky.
Everything else may change, but the one immutable rule of big-time college sports recruiting never does: Nothing is over until the letter of intent is signed.
