Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#151      

Combo

C
Combo
Yeah, he seems like a guy tgat would need a least a year to develop. And who knows if he wouldn’t transfer after that year.

We need an offensively potent SG right away, not a developmental piece for down the road.
 
#152      

Fly Illini Fly!

F
Fly Illini Fly!
What could've possibly happened? It seems like the obvious question to ask but...there really isn't another question to ask regarding Egor.

What could've possibly flipped a full 180 to go from optimistic, pretty much everything settled $ wise, to go to this? I trust that things were good at the time, I absolutely do, but what could've possibly happened to go from more or less a settled deal $ wise and basketball wise to him asking for an absurd price and everything just crashing within moments?

For all that, is it just a message offering a bigger bag?

Lord knows...
What Happened Tyler GIF by Big Brother
 
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#153      

Illinicpa14

I
Chicago
Illinicpa14
ChiefGritty said:
They had like 5 of them.

Thankfully "Team of the Decade" is not the bar we have to hit in order to achieve success.

Nonetheless, it's not fun to be sitting here staring down the barrel of yet another offseason going by where the absolute core #1 thing we were targeting to add ends up a total miss (I hope we're not there yet, but the idea we're standing hat-in-hand outside the NBA combine doesn't inspire much confidence).

We don't have the horses as things stand, in addition to the big positional hole on the team.
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I would argue last year our #1 target once it wasn’t clear they were first rounders was convincing TSJ and Coleman to come back to school and not be second round picks or two-way undrafted guys.

Same with prior years of Brad convincing Ayo to come back and kofi when he joined the portal.
 
#155      

Fly Illini Fly!

F
Fly Illini Fly!
Hate to say it, but this might be true tbh.

I know it's not really possible to be "top tier" every single year but this hurts. We just kept swinging and missing and have a great coach and, presumably adequate NIL package, at least for the Big 10. This is a stinker...
 
#157      

Brosky

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Brosky
I just watched highlight videos again of Cedric Coward of Eastern Washington. What I saw was an elite athlete who really knocks down threes. He's long, so MIGHT be a plus defender. Are we involved with him? Is he still available? Could well be the wing we're looking for.
 
#158      

BalloonsTheElephant

B
BalloonsTheElephant
ChiefGritty said:
Well, a true big only became a hole because of our portal losses. Fair enough on the PG point, though that was an empty slot last year.

But it's not hindsight bias here, we need a big scoring guard/wing, that's been the focus from day 1. Storr, then various plans B.

So now all the players who were just upside bench pieces when it was "positive" to still be in the Church of Denzel are being reimagined into stars now that that's what being "positive" requires. The ret-conning gets so tiresome.

We need a big time perimeter bucket-getter, as we have the whole time.
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#160      

Illini8420

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Illini8420
Lol if Ty somehow become a decent 3 point shooter we wouldn't need a star wing from the portal.
 
#162      

Greensboro

Greensboro
Greensboro
Class_of_2020 said:
Understand people want to be positive but anyone thinking this offseason was anything but a massive failure is delusional. This is a bubble team
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yet to be determined on bubble team, talent wise I personally think we are better than a bubble team.. but saying this is a massive failure is a massive overstatement:
1) We were set up to lose a lot because of all the seniors - can't blame that on this offseason
2) Personally I like the way we added pieces early to raise the floor - really needed to with only 2 returning...but I think overall we have raised the floor from where we would have been if we hadn't lost anyone we expected to lose (TJ/Coleman/Guerrier/Harmon/Domask)
3) Boswell & Tomislav are grade A pickups, making this class without hindsight look better than last seasons portal class; with hindsight we have yet to see if we hit the surprise HR we hit with Domask
4)Davis/Booth/Hummer/White are all intriguing & outside of Hummer they all have multiple years of eligibility to maybe carry over
5)Replacing TJ was always going to be tough to impossible task, but honestly at this point last year we didn't think we had him either & I'm sure we will add someone in his place...the question is how close will he be to TJ's production & t
6)Not sure if you count it in this offseason, but we are also bring in MR. basketball

Without hindsight, I'm not sure at this point last year we would have felt much better about the roster - yet we made it to an elite 8...patience Jedi
 
#167      

ChiefGritty

ChiefGritty
Chicago, IL
ChiefGritty
Greensboro said:
saying this is a massive failure is a massive overstatement
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What we can say clearly at this stage is that we have been completely bamboozled by the market price of talent in this market. We've done a creative but still incomplete job of finding value in sneakier ways, but we've been unable or unwilling to pay the revealed market value of a host of players where we thought we'd elbowed out other suitors.

That's a broader thing than just the 2024-25 Illini team. I have said from the very beginning that this portal season was going to be a learning experience, and those lessons are trickling in.

NCIllini10 said:
BYU
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Just bizarre on so many levels. Honest to god, does Egor Demin know what a Mormon is?
 
#172      

djkirkpatrick22

djkirkpatrick22
djkirkpatrick22
BalloonsTheElephant said:
While I'm not super excited about missing out on our top guys, we have put together a solid roster. The quality of our Wing will determine our ceiling for the season.
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I'm nervous looking at some of the other rosters that have been assembled around us in the B1G. But..... none of those rosters have Daddy Brad and the side kicks either.... lol
 
#174      

jacekpardol

jacekpardol
jacekpardol
I think Brad can do more will talent then most coaches. National guys seem to be down on our transfer portal work. Torvik has us at 56, field of 68 talked about being disappointed in our offseason and sleepers had us as one of the biggest losers this offseason. Again, no time to jump off a bring but pending a big splash here I'm a bit underwhelmed.
 
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