This is a nice interview with K that I found on Airowe's twitter feed
LINK
K just oozes wisdom. The response that caught my eye was concerning academics.
“Yeah we can’t go after every one-and-done guy because a lot of the guys and they are great players and great kids, but school isn’t as important. A lot of those guys a number of years ago didn’t have to go to college. Dwight Howard. Kobe Bryant. LeBron James. Kids are…it’s not even going one year. They are going to spend maybe six-seven months. Sometimes…we have a great school, but it’s not as attractive as going someplace else, so we have to be careful with who we get involved with because it could be a monumental waste of time for us.”
Although I think we all realize this, I tend to forget how big a role our academic threshold plays in our recruiting strategy. Very often I hear folks question K's judgment regarding why he didn't get involved with some top 20 hotshot recruit. In our minds, it's just about their highlight reels and rankings, but our coaches need to take into account a very complex amalgam of data when considering a recruit. Whereas at many schools academics can be an afterthought ("let's just get him signed and then we'll worry about getting him to qualify academically"), for K and company it sounds like academics are right at the forefront before they even start after a recruit. The pool they subsequently work with is smaller than what most other schools work with. Then, naturally, some academically adequate prospects are just not interested in Duke. This happens for all schools, even (gasp) the almighty KY.
I think K's intimation that one-and-dones more often than not will want to find a school they can easily coast through rather than encounter even a modicum of rigor makes sense. If a big pay day ain't that far away, it makes sense to go the path of least resistance, particularly if the basketball is just as excellent as it might be in Durham.
Recruiting is not easy. I'd say K's doing a pretty decent job.