A couple of things:
I had the good fortune of being able to watch Meeks twice his senior year as I was doing a lot of work down in Georgia at the time. I knew we had something special. He was ranked just behind Ellington and Gerald Henderson in the SG rankings and I was telling everyone who would listen that this kid was at least as good, if not better, than both. I made a "more athletic" Keith Bogans comparison at the time but I also saw a bit of Dwayne Wade in him with his floor vision. I also noticed he seemed to be more comfortable off the bounce as a shooter than just spotting up for 3.
He showed flashes of his ability his freshman season (the UofL game and the SEC tourney game against Miss State spring to mind) but I thought that Coach Smith was far too loyal to the upperclassman Crawford. Crawford was a nice player for us but he was limited and I never thought he had the ceiling that Meeks has.
Meeks wasn't a highly coveted prospect nationally despite being a 4 star Guard. Believe it or not some questioned his ability to shoot the perimeter jumpshot! I blame a lot of this on the guru's because if you're not playing national, AAU tourney's by the time you're in 7th grade most seem to believe you're "suspect" as a player. Meeks didn't start playing AAU until the summer after his sophmore year. He's an amazing athlete for a guy his size at 6'4 and 200 +lbs.
Tubby recruited Meeks and that's great for him (and us) but he also made more than his share of recruiting mistakes at Kentucky. Tubby deserves credit for some of this but Gillispie deserves a lot as well. We have a nice team with two All-American caliber players, two or three newcomers with some solid potential and tough, gritty, experienced role players. This team has a far higher ceiling than last year's and with the right draw who knows what could happen if this team gets on a hot streak. It happens all the time in sports and especially in College Basketball.
Edit: I should add that what Jodie did last night was amazing. I told my wife shortly after he hit his third 3 of the first half that Tony's record was going down. I never would have guessed he'd have broken Dan Issell's record. That's one I never thought I'd live to see broken even with the three point line today. Issell and his records at Kentucky are something you look at with awe and wish you could have been there to see it done. Just an amazing thing that happened last night in Knoxville and I'm glad me and my son were able to see it.