Kentucky (Photo credit: lalunablanca)The second round of Thursday’s NBA draft brought Kentucky a record for most players drafted in the first two rounds, but it was mostly about the foreign players, who were noticeably absent in the first round.
The national champion Wildcats had four players taken in the first round, then guard Doron Lamb was taken by the Bucks with the 12th pick of the second round and forward Darius Miller was selected four picks later by the New Orleans Hornets. That gave Kentucky six players taken in the two-round draft.
Only UNLV in 1977 had as many as six players taken in the draft, and the Runnin’ Rebels had only two players taken in the first two rounds of that 1977 draft, which included seven rounds of selections.
In the past three years, Kentucky had had 15 players drafted, including 10 in the first round.
Coach John Calipari acknowledged the showing in the draft helps recruiting.
“I don’t know what else you can add to our recruiting,” he told the Lexington Herald-Leader. “I just want to know, ‘How did you beat us on a kid?’”
The trend toward drafting foreign players hit a lull this year. The first foreign player was not taken until the 20th pick of the first round (Evan Fournier of France, to the Nuggets), and that’s the latest a player who did not attend an American college or high school was taken since 1995, when every player drafted in the first round attended an American college or high school.
http://www.hoopsworld.com/nba-draft-round-2-kentucky-sets-record-with-six-players-drafted
