I do not think I could care less about recruiting the state of Illinois. The only people that do care are out of touch with the reality of our current game.
Are you kidding? You know our best player, only NBA prospect and key to our entire season is from Chicago....right? You do know that Chicago is one of the top one or two recruiting areas in the country, right? This program will never ever be able to sustain, what used to be, an elite tradition without recruiting this state and recruiting it well. Between Chicago and the surrounding suburbs, Peoria, East St. Louis, Belvidere, etc....there is a riches of talent unlike most other states and over the last five years....outside of Ayo, we've gotten none of it and have sucked each and every year.
Our last decent teams were led by Illinois based talent, Paul, Richardson, Egwu, Abrams....all Illinois kids. You look at our roster now....less Ayo, nothing.
There's a reason why we're at where we're at. We don't get our piece of the pie in our own state. For the flagship school to continually be left in the cold is a pure failure on behalf of the staff and the results back that up.
They can continue to scour all four corners of the US and the globe, but until they stop losing 3 of the top 5 recruits in the state to the likes if Iowa State(two years ago)....expect nothing but the same. To think it doesn't matter is pure lunacy.