Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread (August 2018)

[TheGMan]

They are correlated, but it's not 1 to 1. There are plenty of teams out there that recruit at high levels despite poor performances. My personal example is UNLV, but there's obvious coaching choices that pull recruits higher than their weight class. Of course, that typically means on court success is lacking, or they would just be known as good coaches.

On court success is the easiest way to get good recruits. I guess my point is there needs to be some concept what who we can pull. Offer every top 50 kid for all I care, but spending time (and OV's) but theres gotta be some self awareness. TBH it's probably that we know about 5% of whats going on, but it seems like the staff wasted more time then they should've on kids they should not have. Though hindsight helps, there must have been some feeling that a few of those kids were pipe dreams.

At the end of the day, theres always going to be second place finishes and wasted recruiting time, but I don't think we have to have 20 win seasons to pull every guy we want.

I don't think there is a school out there that would turn down on OV to a top 50 kid that they have offered. Maybe only the blue bloods, but that's because they'd likely have a great shot at a top 25 kid at the same position. But even that would be very rare.

 

[Johnny Lawrence]

Duke is paying $9mil a year currently, more than any other school. Even Self, the fourth highest paid according to USA Today's database, is only $4.9.

Stevens contract was for a little over $3mil a year, although it's said his extension gave him a good bump.

Duke pays K $9MM a year because the returns from his marketability and success bring even more back. I would be surprised if they paid his successor that much (adjusting for inflation) unless he was a proven commodity and of those discussed I would find it even more surprising if their current employers didn't match it.

It'll be interesting for sure. The bottom line is the coach makes or breaks everything. We can talk about history until all the blue blood rushes to our faces but in the last 30 years they have all either regressed to the mean (UCLA, IU), stumbled until the ship was righted by a HOF coach (NC - Roy, UK - Pitino, Cal), replaced a HOF coach with another (KU) or haven't been faced with the challenge yet (Duke).

 

[sacraig]

This board (and Illinois fans in general) added another level of anxiety and desperation after the 2007 recruiting class. Add 12 more years of bad memories and you get the current product.

I am aware of the history, but the anxiety level has dramatically increased on the boards in the last 2 or 3 years, IMO.

 

[Rap73]

Meyers Leonard was a lottery pick. Cookie wasn't too bad.

I agree, however he was drafted on his potential and not what he accomplished. My opinion is based on Kane's potential.

 

[DudeIllini]

I am aware of the history, but the anxiety level has dramatically increased on the boards in the last 2 or 3 years, IMO.

We’ve havent been this bad over many posters’ lifetimes. The last extended period of W/L this bad was the 70s. It’s time to be anxious!

 

[BananaShampoo]

Uh, Deon Thomas, the best big man Illinois has every had, along with Marcus Griffin. Shawn Pruitt had some solid skills, too, despite being a black hole. Have we been a factory, like G-town was at one time? No, but we have had some and would be pleased if Kane could be what Griffin was and even in the same area code as Thomas!

Let's just throw Robert Archibald, Mike Davis, and Mike Tisdale into the mix, as well. Each of them were pretty solid B1G players by the time they were upperclassmen even if not spectacular (though Davis did lead the league in rebounding one season, I believe).

 

[BananaShampoo]

Spud Webb and Charlie Criss and Tyrone "T-Bone" Robinson, the latter being a Juco player at Olney Central in the mid-1980s from Gary, Ind., who shot a funky ball but could dunk like nobody's business at 5'8"!

Those former two guys were NBA players, so my point stands that any dude who can dunk at 5'8" is dang impressive athletically!

 

[dbeverly26]

I agree on A and B. But I think unless they find some elite candidate that is going to satisfy the Dukie masses and pass K's approval, they're going to feel like they have to stay in the Duke coaching tree for a replacement. Rest assured that when it is time for K to exit, he will not do so without a plan for his choice to get the job if he has a particular choice.

I'd be shocked if they went outside of K's tree for this hire, and would love nothing more than to see them wind up with their own version of Matt Doherty.

 

[Johnny Lawrence]

I'd be shocked if they went outside of K's tree for this hire, and would love nothing more than to see them wind up with their own version of Matt Doherty.

I'd be shocked too if only because they will let K hand pick his successor (Capel, Collins, Hurley?) and I also have no doubt that the program will regress.

As of today I wouldn't take any of the aforementioned over BU.

 

[Bogey99]

All I know for sure is that this board has given up on reason. I get whiplash due to how rapidly and violently we swing between "we are in the lead to land x, y, and z recruit" to "our entire 2019 class is doomed!"

Maybe that's because "this board" is nothing more than a group of individuals, each with their own varying opinions. There is not one single collective voice for "this board," despite what you, S&C and others seem to think.

 

[Illini0114]

Seriously? All of those schools have made it to the Big Dance a lot more than we have in the past 5 years or so with the exception of Pitt. And maybe RI but I'm not going to look it up.

You severely missed my point.

I just meant that other than KU, this list of schools seemed lower in recruiting clout. That list, without any factors tied to the individual recruit, is uninspiring.

In the last line of my post I said something about how at this point we aren't that intimidating either but I guess you missed that part.

To go one step further, if we were "where we should be" with regards to recruiting we should feel super confident going against those schools. Again, with the exception of KU.

 

[sacraig]

Maybe that's because "this board" is nothing more than a group of individuals, each with their own varying opinions. There is not one single collective voice for "this board," despite what you, S&C and others seem to think.

I didn't indicate in any way, shape, or form that this board had some collective opinion. What I did indicate is that this board is undergoing some violent mood swings and an overall shift in the average level of pessimism. Since this board has a history of pretending it understands statistics, let's put this into the terminology of a statistical distribution. Assume everyone on the board has their own opinion that deviates from the "average" opinion approximately normally. My hypothesis, based on observation, is the following.

• The standard deviation of those opinions appears to be getting larger.
• The people on the tails of the distribution also seem to be getting louder.
• For the real statistics nerds, the skewedness of the opinion distribution appears to be increasing, with more people moving toward the "sky is falling" tail than were previously in that camp.
• The kurtosis of the opinion distribution seems to be growing larger, meaning people are being pushed toward those tails in the distribution. There are fewer moderate opinions on here (or they have just become quieter).

But hey, you can just ignore the above and keep accusing me of treating the board as a monolithic voice if you'd like (which I have specifically decried in previous posts, if you bothered to actually look at what I've said previously before accusing me of things).

 

[Deleted member 643761]

Except, you know, I didn't. Unless you choose to specifically read it that way just to make things contentious. If the voice of reason is somewhere in the middle - not too optimistic and not too pessimistic - then saying that "the board" has given up on reason implies exactly what I says it does later: that the people comprising "the board" tend to be moving away from that middle ground. Feel free to read it as me implying that the board has one collective opinion, but doing so ignores my entire posting history on these boards to date.

There's only two or three people who i actually remember positions or attitudes. You're not one of them.

That said i routinely here collective admonitions and it drives me crazy.

I can't ignore your history because i dont know it. So I'm stuck with analyzing what you said which definitely fit into the classic collective criticism

 

[sacraig]

There's only two or three people who i actually remember positions or attitudes. You're not one of them.

That said i routinely here collective admonitions and it drives me crazy.

I can't ignore your history because i dont know it. So I'm stuck with analyzing what you said which definitely fit into the classic collective criticism

It wasn't even a criticism, really. It was a statement that, on average, this board has moved away from any modicum of measured patience and toward an average position of "everything is going to end in the worst possible way", and just months ago it was exactly the opposite. I've made no statement about individual opinions, nor have I said that every person here somehow engages in groupthink. That would be the position of S&C: that he is the only sane one left and everyone else is collectively living in an orange-tinged world and can't see the house burning down around us.

 

[jrichisamazing]

It's kind of weird that there isn't 1, but 2 weekends with more than 1 OV. We've had 2 guys on campus before, but I think it's kind of weird. Wouldn't you want all of your attention on 1 guy? Maybe it wasn't avoidable.

 

[OldSlowPG]

In home visit with Timme 9-17. This is his 5th of 6 in-home. It looks like we are squeezed in between Arizona on the 16th and Louisville on the 18th.
twitter

 

[Tacomallini]

Has the board given up on the MIF pipeline already?? What about Shannon and The Show.??

I don't think either the board, or more importantly, the coaching staff have given up on the MIF pipeline, Shannon or the Show. But we are after bigs in a desperate way, as evidenced in our scheduled OV to date.

 

[Tacomallini]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1034156694689992710

Not much here to be scared of, other than Kansas and maybe Maryland... But then again, are we somebody anyone should be scared of either :/

I do rest a bit easier seeing that the Kansas visit is an unofficial one

 

[Desert Illini]

I'm glad all of our recruits are now in house and we can discuss them in the 2018 thread. Does that fill all our slots save 1? Schollie 13 is open but marked red. Is that a sign that we are thinking the staff is done for this year and we are rolling the schollie? Is/has that been confirmed anywhere? I'm okay with that. Guerrier is a slightly possible 2018 though right? I believe all of our upcoming OV's, with the possible exception of Gue, are for 2019 or beyond.

 

[Calvin]

nor have I said that every person here somehow engages in groupthink. That would be the position of S&C: that he is the only sane one left and everyone else is collectively living in an orange-tinged world and can't see the house burning down around us.

Yup, lots of different opinions, but the product on the court was a disappointment last year, and lots of questions arise from it. On top of that, we have a really tough schedule for a team with so many freshman, AND we've whiffed on enough recruits that it's hard not to second-guess what we're doing there.

Welcome to the off-season of a program in rebuilding mode.

 

[PlayAZ]

Nnaji is supposed to be visiting today as part of his week long Midwest visitation tour...

 

[PlayAZ]

I didn't indicate in any way, shape, or form that this board had some collective opinion. What I did indicate is that this board is undergoing some violent mood swings and an overall shift in the average level of pessimism. Since this board has a history of pretending it understands statistics, let's put this into the terminology of a statistical distribution. Assume everyone on the board has their own opinion that deviates from the "average" opinion approximately normally. My hypothesis, based on observation, is the following.

• The standard deviation of those opinions appears to be getting larger.
• The people on the tails of the distribution also seem to be getting louder.
• For the real statistics nerds, the skewedness of the opinion distribution appears to be increasing, with more people moving toward the "sky is falling" tail than were previously in that camp.
• The kurtosis of the opinion distribution seems to be growing larger, meaning people are being pushed toward those tails in the distribution. There are fewer moderate opinions on here (or they have just become quieter).

But hey, you can just ignore the above and keep accusing me of treating the board as a monolithic voice if you'd like (which I have specifically decried in previous posts, if you bothered to actually look at what I've said previously before accusing me of things).

So the head (acumen) is going out the door, and the heart (feelings) % is growing infinitively ....well stated.

 

[ChiefIllini]

Its nice to see the staff testing the spectrum of bigs. Shows they at least have awareness of the current situation. OTOH, it's slightly disconcerting considering what that means for the upcoming season. I guess patience should be buzz word here, both on and off the court.

 

[TownieMatt]

Nnaji is supposed to be visiting today as part of his week long Midwest visitation tour...

Have to hand it to the staff, they're at least getting these quality bigs on campus. Now we just need to close.

(No Baldwin gifs please)

 

[westcoastillini]

Have to hand it to the staff, they're at least getting these quality bigs on campus. Now we just need to close.

(No Baldwin gifs please)

Eric Bossi article and has a nice paragraph about Illini recruits.

https://basketballrecruiting.rivals...diana-illinois-under-the-radar-prospects-more