The issue is when you look at other teams where they completely washed the roster, it doesn't look this disorganized offensively. I think that Coach Lucas failed to build a complete roster, with the resources available. He built a very athletic roster with limited size, very little perimeter shooting, and no true dominant ball handling guards. It doesn't take a genius to see that Miami can be easily stymied with a zone, or press. Defensively, Miami is very good, but offensively, every night will be a rock fight, because this team doesn't do anything well on the offensive end.
It's like he spent most of his budget on high end five stars, ignoring the fact that thanks to changes in how these youngsters are developed, you can't rely on most of these high end guys anymore, because most of them have little to no actual feel for the game at this age. There's a reason why a guy like Calipari, who practically invented this concept, is starting to look more towards transfers and guys that are closer to finished products. There are few Cam Boozers out there, that are not only ready to play at the collegiate level as a true freshman, but DOMINATE.
He brought in two freshmen; one of them was a five star. Whatever his NIL was, we didn’t have to overpay because Lucas has known him since 7th grade which is why he flipped from an elite program. They both went to the same HS; it was a matter of comfortability not money. The other freshman played for two winning programs & wasn't a five star. He too had ties to the coaching staff.
However, hard to say that we recruited a kid with no BBIQ considering he’s a coach’s son; and the Malik Allen has been coaching in the league for a dozen years. Dante Allen is a winning player adjusting to a new environment.
All three of the international guys played on pro teams and Noam is the oldest guy, 23, on our squad. Timotej is 20 or 21 and Big Turk is 19.
Three of our young guys don’t even play. We have Marcus Allen who’s a sophomore; then, two juniors, and two seniors in the rotation. We have age; definitely aren’t young individually; just young collectively. Add that to the fact that three dudes are living in the USA for the first time in their lives.
Calipari still relies on highly touted true freshmen. His two leading scorers, 35 outta their 88 points a game team average, 39.7%, come from two five star freshmen. Shelton played with Darius Acuff, one of those freshmen, on the Team USA U18 team in 2024.
Sidebar; In an odd historical basketball quirk, Darius and Mikel Brown (Louisville) received most of the PG minutes over a third, lesser touted PG. Said 3rd PG had an older brother who now leads the NCAA in assists (Jeremy Fears Jr). Jeremiah Fears decided to reclassify, went absolutely crazy as a young freshman playing winning basketball, then went #6 in the draft. Averaging 15 ppg rn.
Just goes to show how great Darius and Mikel are. Which is why Cal didn’t give af that Boogie transferred to UF. Cal not only recruits 5*’s but he retains them (Kartex Knox, DJ Wagner, etc).
Arkansas has two rotation players who are transfers; both big men. They’re the seventh and eighth leading scorers on the team; average 8.2 outta 37.9 rebounds per game (21.6%) for the team. Everyone else has been apart of Cal’s continuity. He has a ton of back-burning bench freshmen because like Jai he knows it’s a waste to get transfers who aren’t going to play; and he can’t play thirteen guys consistently. 
