I agree with you, and will add that there are just as many kids in DI right now as there was when I was able to watch Brian Lake, Olajuan Kemp, Willie Kemp, Wayne Chism, Thaddeus Young, Cannon Whitby, Tony Delk, Steve Hamer, Kirk Haston, Corrie Johnson, ect...
For whatever reason, there aren't right now and haven't been for a few years any kids in rural West Tn. on that level...maybe not even close to that level. Without checking, there's a span of a few years that many of those I listed overlapped and you could drive less than an hour to see a true DI athlete. You just knew then that you were enjoying a level of basketball that wouldn't last, but when the run stopped, you wouldn't have thought that it was done for years without even a sniff of that kind of avalanche of talent. The "good 'ol days" really were the good 'ol days!