Former BBall Recruiting Targets

#53      
Marcus Lovett is the kind of guy that I think would have helped himself playing in B10. Best handles I think ever saw and amazing vision. Last I saw he was overseas. Just a wizard with the ball. I think we bailed when he was iffy with qualifying.

+1 Saw him dribble through the entire defense numerous times. He could do whatever he chose to do & defenses had no answer. What a talent!
 
#55      
Man, this list is kinda painful to go through, particularly for the guys that transferred out. Not that we're missing what they're doing, but because it brings back the high hopes I had for them coming into Illinois and the (relative) bummer their career has turned into -- thinking DJ Williams and JCL in particular.
OT but, I don't think Williams is getting significant tick because there's not room on the bench. Sure it would be great if he scored, too, but he's doing what he does really, really well.
 
#57      
how about Jimmy Whitt at arkansas
edit: oh and what's his name Braun at mizzou
Parker Braun! That was a low. Took a walk on offer from Mizzou instead of a scholarship from ILL. Think he got a scholarship soon after.

Shake Milton! Loved the name. Smu. Declared early, in NBA
 
#59      
I still can't believe Ray'Sean Taylor didn't wait to commit and see if his stock rose.
Looks like he had offers from Milwaukee, Akron, Wright State & Indiana State. Not high majors, but still better offers. Maybe just not interested it going away from home?
 
#62      
Didn't see Woldetensae mentioned. Now a starter for Virginia and I saw he scored something like 21 points against Wake the other night.

One of Woldetensae, Donnie Tillman or Tyler's buddy Holyfield would have made us odds on for the FF.
 
#64      
One of Woldetensae, Donnie Tillman or Tyler's buddy Holyfield would have made us odds on for the FF.

Woldetensae hasn't been a huge factor for Virginia. His 21 against Wake in OT was only his second double digit scoring effort of the season, the first being 11 points against UNC in December. Added him to the sheet.
 
#65      
Think I've got all the names added that people mentioned on here last night, with the exception that I'll only add class of '15 guys that are still playing NCAA (no Shamet and Milton).
 
#67      
Something inspired me to take a look at some of our notable former recruiting targets (as well as some former players who've transferred) and see how they're doing at this point in their careers. I wanted to make it a separate thread to keep the Recruiting Thread for active / future recruits.

I've excluded players who've played in the Big 10 / Mizzou as most of us are probably fairly aware of where they're at in their careers. I essentially used 247's offers page for each recruiting class to populate this list, and filtered by the names that I remember standing out as interesting prospects at one point or another.

Players are grouped by the class we recruited them in. I've included TJ Holyfield, who we recruited as a transfer, in the 2019 class as that's when he would have joined us, despite being a part of a different high school class. Under the Current Team column, teams with text in red are non-D1 teams (pro, juco, d-2, etc.). I've only included players that are currently playing college basketball, so mostly Class of 2016 on-wards, plus some 5th year players in the HS 2015 class.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vHmKWp6wHIZd3_XHipfmb5j0tdA7wjNEDD5y3HcQz5U/edit?usp=sharing

Notable observations:
  • Te'Jon Lucas doing pretty well for himself at UW-Milwaukee this season
  • Jordan Goodwin continuing to kill it on an individual stats level at SLU
  • Terrence Shannon has seemingly done very well at Texas Tech as a freshman. Not shooting much, but scoring at a decent clip, and saw a couple articles praising his defensive versatility.
This is not meant to be a "wE nEeD tO rEcRuIt BeTtEr, LoOk At AlL tHeSe MiSsEs" kind of post, but more of a, "Hey, remember that guy?".

If there's any names I missed that people want added to the spreadsheet, let me know!
This is a great endeavor and thanks for taking the time to pull it all together. Of course we wish for the best for these kids and their choices. All things happen for a reason. However, I do look at some of the past Illinois commits and I think they needed to be where they are to have achieved their success. Some had to go down to lower levels of competition to be able to get that playing time, confidence to succeed (aka TLucas), some are just not the players that we thought they would've been (aka MSmith, DJ), and some we miss, but the team has a great alternative (aka JCL and AGriffin). Man, there were some great discussions about some of these players. What about Greg Eboboiden (sp?)...where is he? Hopefully he's doing well.
 
#68      
Something inspired me to take a look at some of our notable former recruiting targets (as well as some former players who've transferred) and see how they're doing at this point in their careers. I wanted to make it a separate thread to keep the Recruiting Thread for active / future recruits.

I've excluded players who've played in the Big 10 / Mizzou as most of us are probably fairly aware of where they're at in their careers. I essentially used 247's offers page for each recruiting class to populate this list, and filtered by the names that I remember standing out as interesting prospects at one point or another.

Players are grouped by the class we recruited them in. I've included TJ Holyfield, who we recruited as a transfer, in the 2019 class as that's when he would have joined us, despite being a part of a different high school class. Under the Current Team column, teams with text in red are non-D1 teams (pro, juco, d-2, etc.). I've only included players that are currently playing college basketball, so mostly Class of 2016 on-wards, plus some 5th year players in the HS 2015 class.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vHmKWp6wHIZd3_XHipfmb5j0tdA7wjNEDD5y3HcQz5U/edit?usp=sharing

Notable observations:
  • Te'Jon Lucas doing pretty well for himself at UW-Milwaukee this season
  • Jordan Goodwin continuing to kill it on an individual stats level at SLU
  • Terrence Shannon has seemingly done very well at Texas Tech as a freshman. Not shooting much, but scoring at a decent clip, and saw a couple articles praising his defensive versatility.
This is not meant to be a "wE nEeD tO rEcRuIt BeTtEr, LoOk At AlL tHeSe MiSsEs" kind of post, but more of a, "Hey, remember that guy?".

If there's any names I missed that people want added to the spreadsheet, let me know!
This is great. I sometimes try to remember names of former recruits and look up what they are doing now but having this list and info is way easier. Nice work!
 
#70      

sbillini

st petersburg, fl
interesting thread. Thanks for putting this together.

I'd add X(Z?)avier Simpson. Who's got their FAA flighttracker fired up? That whole ordeal confirmed for me why I don't like to follow-up recruiting too closely.
 
#71      
Woldetensae hasn't been a huge factor for Virginia. His 21 against Wake in OT was only his second double digit scoring effort of the season, the first being 11 points against UNC in December. Added him to the sheet.

If double digit scoring is our benchmark, we have some current players who would be in trouble. Defense and 3 pt shooting are his attributes. I'll still take him in a heartbeat.
 
#72      
interesting thread. Thanks for putting this together.

I'd add X(Z?)avier Simpson. Who's got their FAA flighttracker fired up? That whole ordeal confirmed for me why I don't like to follow-up recruiting too closely.
It is Zavier now, but was it Xavier when we recruited him? That's how I remember it.
 
#75      
If double digit scoring is our benchmark, we have some current players who would be in trouble. Defense and 3 pt shooting are his attributes. I'll still take him in a heartbeat.

Meant to add a comment from earlier where someone pointed out he scored 21, just wanted to show that hasn't been consistent from him this season.

It's interesting looking at his advanced stats vs. Da'Monte. Woldetensae has the general edge in shooting, Da'Monte has the edge in things like Free-Throw Rate, rebounding. But most of the nerd stats are fairly similar between the two. Stats from sports-reference/cbb.

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