Two winners in recruitment of DJ Wagner: Kentucky for getting him, Louisville for not

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DaJuan Wagner
(Rivals.com)

It became a magnificent Monday for Kentucky Wildcats when the son of a former star for one of John Calipari’s teams signed a letter of intent to play basketball at UK in the 2023-24 season.

In some ways, it might even have been a better day for Kentucky’s fiercest rival, Louisville, which lost out on the grandson of one of its former stars at that precise moment.

This may sound curious to you.

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How could Louisville find happiness through falling short in the pursuit of D.J. Wagner, a 6-3 guard who won a gold medal with USA Basketball at the FIBA U17 World Cup, is the reigning New Jersey state player of the year and is ranked No. 1 in the 2023 recruiting class by 247 Sports? Let alone losing him to a hated rival?

It’s not about Wagner’s talent, demeanor or suitability to compete at the Division I level. Kentucky is getting a special player whose father, Dajuan, averaged 21.2 points for Memphis in 2001-02 and became the No. 6 overall pick in the draft, and whose grandfather, Milt, won an NCAA championship with the Cardinals in 1986. He likely will be a freshman star and, soon after, an NBA lottery pick. It's all but a lock Kentucky's 2023 recruiting class will be ranked No. 1.

This is about Louisville’s readiness to succeed with such a player. It’s about whether the Cardinals want to build a winning program or win a single, high-profile recruiting battle in coach Kenny Payne’s first season.

Programs that have achieved what Louisville could not in this instance often find themselves missing NCAA Tournaments or falling short of expectations and eventually searching for new head coaches. It’s difficult even for mature programs to manage one-and-done talents if they haven’t the experience doing it or the talent is short of transcendent.

Consider what became of some other coaches who landed draft-bound talents toward the start of their tenures.

* Tom Crean signed Anthony Edwards after one season at Georgia in which the Dawgs went 11-16. There wasn’t much to build around, and Edwards could only do so much to change that. He was tremendous, averaging 23.1 points, then was gone. They went just 16-16 that year. Two years later, Crean was out of a job.

* Archie Miller landed in-state scoring star Romeo Langford in his second year, after his first team finished 16-15. Langford averaged 16.5 points as a freshman, then was gone. The team went 19-16 and lost to Ohio State in the opening round of the Big Ten Tournament, losing out on the remote chance of an NCAA bid. Two years later, Miller was fired.

* Johnny Jones brought in Australian megatalent Ben Simmons to an LSU team that reached the NCAAs but lost two NBA talents. Simmons averaged 19.2 points and 11.8 rebounds, then was gone. He never connected with his teammates, and the Tigers fell to 19-14 and missed the NCAAs. A year later, Jones was dismissed.

* Lorenzo Romar attracted guard Markelle Fultz to Washington to join the 2016-17 Huskies, a year after they had gone 19-15 and then lost two other one-and-done prospects to the NBA Draft. Fultz averaged 23.2 points and 5.9 assists, then was gone. Those Huskies went 9-22. Romar had been in charge for one of the program’s greatest periods – six NCAAs in eight years – but this was his sixth straight year missing March. He was let go that spring.

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It seems there’s a story of this sort nearly every year. They aren’t all the same. Darius Garland went to Vanderbilt and barely played because of an early season knee injury, and the Commodores finished without winning a single conference game. But they all end alike: with the player moving on to the draft regardless and the coach – in this case Bryce Drew – looking for a new position.

To successfully blend a one-and-done prospect into a program generally requires an established program culture, whether it’s what you might have found at Roy Williams’ North Carolina (a deep, talented lineup where the freshmen such as Marvin Williams and Tony Bradley are there to contribute and not required to dominate) or at Duke and Kentucky, where they turn over much of their team each year as five-star freshmen arrive, excel and depart.

Louisville fans need not cheer this development. It’s always nice to have great players to cheer, and not nice when the players you want show up against your guys wearing someone else’s uniform.

Kentucky already signed two five-star prospects this month -- No. 2 prospect Justin Edwards, a forward from Philadelphia, and No. 9 Robert Dillingham, a point guard from North Carolina – and four-star shooter Reed Sheppard, whose father, Jeff, was the Most Outstanding Player at the 1998 Final Four. Aaron Bradshaw, a 7-0 footer ranked No. 6 in the class and Wagner’s teammate at Camden High, committed last month. 

Some promising young players already on the roster, including center Ugonna Onyenso and guard Adou Thiero, are positioned to provide a foundation and roster depth. Calipari has extensive experience dealing with a talent like Wagner, from how to manage his presence in the program to the necessity of recruiting his replacement before he even arrives.

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Louisville is off to a predictably dreadful start in Payne’s first season. He got the job because the Cardinals’ talent level had diminished, and then five of the top seven scorers from last season’s 13-19 team departed.

It figures to take at least a while for Payne and his staff, which includes Milt Wagner as director of player development, to build Louisville back into the power it once was, that arrived in the Final Four nine times from 1972 to 2013. Had the timing been different, DJ Wagner might have fit perfectly into Cardinal red and played beneath the banner at KFC Yum! Center his grandfather helped to raise.

Instead, he’ll play for his dad’s coach and chase a ninth (or 10th, pending the outcome of the 2022-23 season) championship at Kentucky. If that happens, it’ll hurt Louisville fans a little extra. Cheering for the Cards’ success, though, should be more important than rooting for UK’s failure.

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Mike DeCourcy Photo

Mike DeCourcy is a Senior Writer at The Sporting News