Duke and Kentucky game pits top recruiting classes, present and future

Kentucky beat Duke Tuesday night in the State Farm Champions Classic, but the early season game poses an interesting question about the competitive balance of college basketball.

The game features two teams that both played in last season’s Final Four and the teams are both ranked in the top five, but their rosters consist of key players that are almost entirely different than last season.

Only teams with high profile coaches like Mike Krzyzewski and John Calipari can accomplish the “reloading” that Kentucky and Duke are able to pull off.

Calipari has been linked to recruiting violations at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Memphis, but not yet at Kentucky.

Despite no links to violations at Kentucky, Calipari’s recruiting has jumped to the next level at Kentucky where he consistently brings one of the top two recruiting classes in the country.

In fact, Calipari’s only contemporary in the recruiting department is Coach K. Kentucky and Duke posted the top two recruiting classes for this season and will boast the top two classes in 2016.

While Calipari consistently uses his ability to send successful players to the NBA as a marketing point with recruits, Coach K has found an advantage in another area.

As the head of the USA Basketball program, Coach K is the benefactor of the Team USA youth programs where he is able to coach and talk to the top high school players in the country. Several experts have asserted that Coach K uses his position in the USA program to pitch Duke to the top young players in America.

Both Coach K and Calipari have carved a unique niche for themselves in the world of college basketball recruiting, perhaps this is the reason that they are the two most consistently successful programs that also have lots of roster turnover.