Biggest Recruiting Mistake

[pruman91]

Jerry Sloan actually enrolled, but did not like the size of the campus, and left. Larry Bird did the same thing at IU.

Again, I heard Doug Collins did not want to play in the 'physical' Big Ten. Note that he was 6-6 but only weighed 180 st ISU. If memory serves, he was more 6-2 and 160 in high school.

Harv Schmidt recruited Jack Sikma hard. He wanted to attend a small college.

I played against Doug Collins in High school when Benton had a little bandbox gym with clothesline nets....Collins was small as a frosh and soph but grew his last 2 yrs....was always a sharp shooter .....man I'm old...

 

[PlayAZ]

I think the aperture opens too much when we consider recruiting "misses" as "mistakes." Every school has many misses, and every fan base, in retrospect would have rather recruited the lower ranked player who happened to overachieve. Most of the examples fit those descriptions.

But as far as mistakes in the sense of recruits who had very close Illini ties, had Illinois as their clear top choice, wanted to come here, we did not recruit them, and came back to haunt us for years, the clear mistakes were only Brian Cardinal and Robbie Hummel.

Clearest and biggest mistake/miss, depending on verbiage you choose is LaPhonso Ellis!

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...ram-ncaa-probe-basketball-coach-digger-phelps

 

[Peoria Illini]

Clearest and biggest mistake/miss, depending on verbiage you choose is LaPhonso Ellis!

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...ram-ncaa-probe-basketball-coach-digger-phelps

No miss on LaPhonso. They lied to him at ND and then he lied to the NCAA regarding his recruitment in the Deon Thomas investigation. Not a coincidence that both Digger and McLeod were out of ND the next few seasons after that stuff.

He was set to come to Illinois, as was Juwon Howard, until the Pearl setup was started. Digger, Bobby, Dr Tom, etc were not happy that the Illini had a pretty solid lock on Chicago with Jimmy Collins. Had the NCAA done the right thing, the Flyin Illini would have continued for quite awhile.

 

[sdfidaho]

Shaquille O'Neal.

Doesn't exactly fit the definition of the OP, but neither do most of the other names offered up.

:thumb:

 

[illini80]

:thumb:

I'd bet 99% didn't even know we recruited him. If LSU hadn't been offering $$$ we may well have landed him. And if you think Lou Henson is legend now, imagine what that would have meant.

 

[nichi]

No miss on LaPhonso. They lied to him at ND and then he lied to the NCAA regarding his recruitment in the Deon Thomas investigation. Not a coincidence that both Digger and McLeod were out of ND the next few seasons after that stuff.

He was set to come to Illinois, as was Juwon Howard, until the Pearl setup was started. Digger, Bobby, Dr Tom, etc were not happy that the Illini had a pretty solid lock on Chicago with Jimmy Collins. Had the NCAA done the right thing, the Flyin Illini would have continued for quite awhile.

I think you mean Digger and Shumate were out, Mcleod was in? We are on the same page here.

The NCAA did not do the right thing because their own investigators and officials were part of the frame-up. http://www.news-gazette.com/sports/...etball/2005-03-22/tate-facts-and-fiction.html

 

[Se Il Illini]

Jim Dawson was a senior at Illinois in 1967. Doug Collins averaged 29.1 ppg as a senior for Benton. This was in the era of single class basketball in Illinois. There was no 3 point line. At the time Benton played in the South 7 . During this time the South 7 was considered to be a very tough basketball conference. I think to say that Doug Collins was a good but not great player in high school is a slight understatement. I saw him play as a sophomore. As the other poster mentioned, he was small, but he could really play. As a senior, I think he was around 6' 0". I have never heard or read that he did not want to play in the Big 10, because it was too physical. As a matter of fact Doug Collins is hyper-competitive.

 

[PlayAZ]

No miss on LaPhonso. They lied to him at ND and then he lied to the NCAA regarding his recruitment in the Deon Thomas investigation. Not a coincidence that both Digger and McLeod were out of ND the next few seasons after that stuff.

He was set to come to Illinois, as was Juwon Howard, until the Pearl setup was started. Digger, Bobby, Dr Tom, etc were not happy that the Illini had a pretty solid lock on Chicago with Jimmy Collins. Had the NCAA done the right thing, the Flyin Illini would have continued for quite awhile.

Did he come to the ILLINI, no, hence a miss...Was the recruitment handled incorrectly by others as well as the ILLINI, yes, hence a mistake is all I am saying...seems pretty apparent to me?

 

[PlayAZ]

Ulis could dunk though?

Yes but not like Spud could

 

[pruman91]

Jim Dawson was a senior at Illinois in 1967. Doug Collins averaged 29.1 ppg as a senior for Benton. This was in the era of single class basketball in Illinois. There was no 3 point line. At the time Benton played in the South 7 . During this time the South 7 was considered to be a very tough basketball conference. I think to say that Doug Collins was a good but not great player in high school is a slight understatement. I saw him play as a sophomore. As the other poster mentioned, he was small, but he could really play. As a senior, I think he was around 6' 0". I have never heard or read that he did not want to play in the Big 10, because it was too physical. As a matter of fact Doug Collins is hyper-competitive.

Back then Benton was known as the running Rangers and they did run....as we were doing our warm ups before the game we watched them do EVERYTHING at high speed and when the game started they fast breaked every time they had the ball.....Collins was small and slight then but could run all day long.....

 

[georgeuremovich]

Two not mentioned, George Wilson and Cazzie Russell.

 

[nichi]

Jim Dawson was a senior at Illinois in 1967. Doug Collins averaged 29.1 ppg as a senior for Benton. This was in the era of single class basketball in Illinois. There was no 3 point line. At the time Benton played in the South 7 . During this time the South 7 was considered to be a very tough basketball conference. I think to say that Doug Collins was a good but not great player in high school is a slight understatement. I saw him play as a sophomore. As the other poster mentioned, he was small, but he could really play. As a senior, I think he was around 6' 0". I have never heard or read that he did not want to play in the Big 10, because it was too physical. As a matter of fact Doug Collins is hyper-competitive.

Jeff Dawson was Class of 1969. I think Jim was his older brother. Jim Dawson was one of my favorite Illini growing up. Anyway, Jeff Dawson attended Duke in 1969 and played there as a sophomore. Note that freshmen were not eligible for varsity back then.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/jeff-dawson-2.html

He transferred to UI in 1971, iirc. expecting to have only one season of eligibility. He wound playing 2 years after the Big Ten started allowing red-shirt seasons.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/jeff-dawson-1.html

This below from Tate 6 years ago sort of supports what I recall hearing from him almost 50 years ago, that Schmidt recruited Collins, but Collins "lacked confidence" he could play in the Big Ten iirc because he was too small? / it was too physical?. I do not recall hearing that about Sikma though. I thought it was because he thought the campus was too big. Memories can get crossed up. I still remember Collins being a good high school player, but not a big time prospect. I'd like to see the all-state teams for 1969. Jim Brewer would have been the top player in the state. Losing him to Minnesota stung.

And then there were Jack Sikma and Doug Collins, great collegiate players at Wesleyan and Illinois State, respectively, and top NBA stars. Schmidt liked both, but in an irony of sorts, ran into a recruiting wall because both lacked confidence, coming out of Benton and St. Anne, that they could play at the Big Ten level. http://www.news-gazette.com/sports/...02-14/tate-weber-backed-ex-coach-schmidt.html

I heard a similar story about Class of 1972 Hersey big and Illini legacy(?) Andy Pancratz, who chose DePaul over UI. He was not a huge loss, except that he would have been better than our other remaining bigs. More importantly, he helped DePaul recruit his younger teammate Dave Corzine -- same 1974 class as Audie Matthews.

 

[nichi]

Two not mentioned, George Wilson and Cazzie Russell.

You don't want to start me. Harry Combes had no shot either due to factors outside his control.

 

[mikpence]

Ike Diogu is my vote.

 

[georgeuremovich]

You don't want to start me. Harry Combes had no shot either due to factors outside his control.

Elaborate?

 

[nichi]

Who is the biggest recruiting mistake in Illinois basketball history?

I define a mistake as a gettable player that we didn't offer (or we slow-played the recruitment).
I was in school during the Flyin' Illini years and it was always painful to watch Ed Horton.

Right on point. Here’s a great story from the Tribune.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.chic...p-1985-mr-basketball-ed-horton-story,amp.html

This was a tough one. Coach Henson went into the fall signing for class of 1985 prospects with just 2 scholarships. There were three top shelf in-state forward prospects; Simeon's Ben Wilson, Lowell Hamilton, and Horton. Wilson would not be deciding until spring. After Hamilton committed, Henson had to hold one for Wilson, rather than counting on something opening up. Otherwise, if he used both scholarships; DePaul and IU recruiters could and would use that to try and sway Wilson.

So, rather than pull the Horton offer, they scared him off by suggesting he would need to red-shirt -- since they had Winters, Meents, Welch, Norman, and Shafer returning, and were adding Hamilton, not to mention the two West German 7 footers coming off a red-shirt season. Sadly, it all became moot a short time later ... Also, two scholarships did open up. Class of 83 recruit Shafer left at the semester, and class of 1984 recruit Scott Haffner left after the season.

...​

In a way, Henson had painted himself into a corner with past recruiting decisions for 1983 and especially 1984. I still don't understand why he took Olaf Blab in 1984. There is his third scholarship to sign Horton. Also, why take Tom Shafer and Scott Haffner if you're not going to play them? In addition, 6-3 Class of 1984 guard Glynn Blackwell from Highland Park, Michigan was a good solid player for us. I am not knocking him. However, we could've had a star in Hersey Hawkins from Chicago Westinghouse. Hawkins was a 6-3 center in high school, and Henson did not think he could make the transition to college guard.

Others: Mo Cheeks 1974, Mitchell J. J. Anderson 1978. Voise Winters 1981, Tim Hardaway 1985.

No idea on Cheeks. I don't think they recruited Anderson at all. I think they tried to get in on Voise Winters too late. Obviously not enough rides for Hardaway.

As an aside: Tony Yates became HC at Cincinnati for the 1983-84 season and was replaced by Jimmy Collins. Just an aside! Collins helped Henson take recruiting to another level in 1986.

 

[Deleted member 643761]

This was a tough one. Coach Henson went into the fall signing for class of 1985 prospects with just 2 scholarships. There were three top shelf in-state forward prospects; Simeon's Ben Wilson, Lowell Hamilton, and Horton. Wilson would not be deciding until spring. After Hamilton committed, Henson had to hold one for Wilson, rather than counting on something opening up. Otherwise, if he used both scholarships; DePaul and IU recruiters could and would use that to try and sway Wilson.

So, rather than pull the Horton offer, they scared him off by suggesting he would need to red-shirt -- since they had Winters, Meents, Welch, Norman, and Shafer returning, and were adding Hamilton, not to mention the two West German 7 footers coming off a red-shirt season. Sadly, it all became moot a short time later ... Also, two scholarships did open up. Class of 83 recruit Shafer left at the semester, and class of 1984 recruit Scott Haffner left after the season.

...​

In a way, Henson had painted himself into a corner with past recruiting decisions for 1983 and especially 1984. I still don't understand why he took Olaf Blab in 1984. There is his third scholarship to sign Horton. Also, why take Tom Shafer and Scott Haffner if you're not going to play them? In addition, 6-3 Class of 1984 guard Glynn Blackwell from Highland Park, Michigan was a good solid player for us. I am not knocking him. However, we could've had a star in Hersey Hawkins from Chicago Westinghouse. Hawkins was a 6-3 center in high school, and Henson did not think he could make the transition to college guard.

Others: Mo Cheeks 1974, Mitchell J. J. Anderson 1978. Voise Winters 1981, Tim Hardaway 1985.

No idea on Cheeks. I don't think they recruited Anderson at all. I think they tried to get in on Voise Winters too late. Obviously not enough rides for Hardaway.

As an aside: Tony Yates became HC at Cincinnati for the 1983-84 season and was replaced by Jimmy Collins. Just an aside! Collins helped Henson take recruiting to another level in 1986.

Nice stuff. Shafer and haffner both had success at their next stops. Pre shot clock henson didn't go very deep.

Of course creaning was pretty much unheard of.

 

[Oskeefan]

Rickey Green, Jim Brewer, Clyde Turner, Isiah Thomas, Evan Turner, Glen Grunwald just to name a few more.

 

[SycIllini]

Coach Henson was interested enough in Mike Duff to visit his school. Not sure how gettable he was but he went to U of E and died in that plane crash Fr year that killed the whole team. He competed well against Larry Bird in a game and people say he could have been another Bird...

I didn’t remember Henson coming to Eldorado to see Duff but, I remember Joe B Hall from Kentucky coming to a game to watch him. I believe Eldorado’s Head coach at the time, Bob Brown, had a connection to UofI. Not sure how much interest there was from either Duff or Illinois.

Truly a sad night when that UE plane crash happened.

 

[Se Il Illini]

Bob Brown, who went to West Frankfort, was a graduate of the University of Illinois.

 

[doowink]

Jay Shidler .....one of the best pure shooters I've seen in my lifetime

 

[nichi]

Rickey Green, Jim Brewer, Clyde Turner, Isiah Thomas, Evan Turner, Glen Grunwald just to name a few more.

Other than Clyde Turner, those were whiffs, not mistakes. I am sure whoever was HC at the time tried to recruit the others. We went to wire on Jim Brewer (1969 Minnesota) and Evan Turner (2007 tOSU), and had been favorites at one point. Had no shot at Isiah Thomas (1979 IU) or Glen Grunwald (1976 IU).

Clyde Turner (1969) and Rickey Green (1973) were non-qualifiers and attended Junior College before winding up at Minnesota and Michigan respectively.

A lot of the names mentioned in the thread were guys we recruited, but just did not get. Mistakes I think Henson made included not offering Hersey Hawkins. On Brian Cardinal, I recall he left that up to him and his dad, but I might be remembering. Also Henson made mistakes taking a few guys imo he should not have taken for various reasons.

Weber and Groce seemed to have had a lot of problems with evaluations, as did the paid evaluators. I dunno that they cudda got all these guys, but I pretty sure they did not ask any of them to come here.

Rank is Rivals 150: Jacob Pullen 2007 NR, Robbie Hummel 2007 75, Fred Van Vleet 2012 138

Rank is 247 composite: Alec Peters 2013 251, Ethan Happ 2014 152, Sean O'Mara 2014 156, Jevon Carter 2014 299, Admiral Schofield 2015 251, Evan Boudreaux 2015 264, Zach Norvell 2016 103, Cameron Krutwig 2017 348.

Weber also made a mistake trying to hang onto EJ Gordon once it was clear the kid's heart was with IU.

 

[EJ33]

Other than Clyde Turner, those were whiffs, not mistakes. I am sure whoever was HC at the time tried to recruit the others. We went to wire on Jim Brewer (1969 Minnesota) and Evan Turner (2007 tOSU), and had been favorites at one point. Had no shot at Isiah Thomas (1979 IU) or Glen Grunwald (1976 IU).

Clyde Turner (1969) and Rickey Green (1973) were non-qualifiers and attended Junior College before winding up at Minnesota and Michigan respectively.

A lot of the names mentioned in the thread were guys we recruited, but just did not get. Mistakes I think Henson made included not offering Hersey Hawkins. On Brian Cardinal, I recall he left that up to him and his dad, but I might be remembering. Also Henson made mistakes taking a few guys imo he should not have taken for various reasons.

Weber and Groce seemed to have had a lot of problems with evaluations, as did the paid evaluators. I dunno that they cudda got all these guys, but I pretty sure they did not ask any of them to come here.

Rank is Rivals 150: Jacob Pullen 2007 NR, Robbie Hummel 2007 75, Fred Van Vleet 2012 138

Rank is 247 composite: Alec Peters 2013 251, Ethan Happ 2014 152, Sean O'Mara 2014 156, Jevon Carter 2014 299, Admiral Schofield 2015 251, Evan Boudreaux 2015 264, Zach Norvell 2016 103, Cameron Krutwig 2017 348.

Weber also made a mistake trying to hang onto EJ Gordon once it was clear the kid's heart was with IU.

Good post.

IIRC Henson simply didn't think Cardinal was good enough and he didn't want him riding the bench here. I suspect Henson thought he'd end up like Phil Kunz or Jeff Finke - guys from small town high schools that didn't pan out.

We can debate some of the other guys on your list, but I think Van Vleet stings the most since Weber went to see him play and wasn't impressed. One would think he was ours if Weber offers right away.

Ethan Happ stings too since he has said he was a big fan of the '04-'05 team, but I think Wisconsin snatched him before we even watched him play.

 

[illini80]

Jay Shidler .....one of the best pure shooters I've seen in my lifetime

He was indeed, but must have had some issues when he got to college. Never turned into the player I expected. My high school team beat his in the state tourney. If there had been a 3 point line back then we'd of been in trouble. Seemed like he had unlimited range.

 

[Deleted member 643761]

Good post.

IIRC Henson simply didn't think Cardinal was good enough and he didn't want him riding the bench here. I suspect Henson thought he'd end up like Phil Kunz or Jeff Finke - guys from small town high schools that didn't pan out.

We can debate some of the other guys on your list, but I think Van Vleet stings the most since Weber went to see him play and wasn't impressed. One would think he was ours if Weber offers right away.

Ethan Happ stings too since he has said he was a big fan of the '04-'05 team, but I think Wisconsin snatched him before we even watched him play.

I thought I had heard that Pullen would have come if offered as well.