The Dave
- CA
Dang! I was gonna make the same joke but with Bo Ryan.
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread (September 2018)
- Status
Dang! I was gonna make the same joke but with Bo Ryan.
Sad that it applies well to multiple B1G coaches.
skyIdub
Winged Warrior
I didn’t know Beilein dominated Ryan like that!
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
Hopefully, we knock Walker's sock off, and he pulls a McLaurin.
Deleted member 643761
D
Guest
We were one of the last two teams on Valtonen. He committed to ASU shortly after our visit which occurred shortly after his ASU visit. pretty much everyone agreed that we were in this and had a good chance at the guy and now you're saying it was "highly unlikely" that he was coming here.
The contortions with reality you have to make to come up with reasons to criticize Underwood are incredible. In all but the rarest of circumstances, when you're in the final two your chances are not "highly unlikely" Further, a player making a decision shortly after a visit for another school doesn't mean that school didn't have a reasonable chance. Seriously. Kendrick Nunn committed on his visit. Do you really rate the chances for all the other schools as "highly unlikely" in retrospect?
Since you've got this down so well, why don't you tell us now which OVs would be a waste.
I mean, yes, as I recall. Did he even take any other OV's?
His previous Texas A&M commitment made him one where I thought "I'll celebrate when the LOI is signed", but as I recall we were the very clear leader at this point in 2012.
Because I'm not nearly as much of a recruitnik as the median Loyalty poster, I feel like my comments on stuff like this routinely get read as hotter takes than they are. Pretty much the only thing I'm actually fired up to argue about recruiting-wise in the Underwood era is that no world exists in which we could have had both Ayo and THT. Which goes with my general ideology that "almost" getting a recruit is absolutely 100% meaningless and anything short of totally disregarding that in any analysis is pure, willful sophistry. See, there, that got my juices flowing.
But like, "it's bad that we ran out of OV's this spring and it would be bad to do so again and we ought to be careful with this limited resource we have" is an ice-cold super banal take.
Obviously know one knows everything going on behind the scenes. I think a lot of the angst on this board is BU’s recruiting is exactly the opposite to Groce’s. It was pretty easy to follow what/who Groce was trying to get. He found guys early and went after them hard. And most of those guys either committed here or put off very positive vibes towards UI until the end.
With BU everything seems random (to us common folk). Out of the guys taking OVs, how many were we excited and talking about in May? Liddell and maybe Shannon? And Liddell sounds like a long shot now. Some people say it’s the staffs choice to keep things quiet. I think others are starting to say this is a huge cluster and the staff doesn’t have a good grasp on recruiting.
Ultimately, we’ll know a lot more in 2-3 months.
If you want a slightly warmer take, since it seems Shannon's recruitment is an unfortunate proxy battle between one parent who wants him in Chicago and one who wants him in Florida, having him for an OV seems like a poor idea. If we must grant an OV as a tithe to the Irvins, I would much rather be in the Markese Jacobs market.
Sal Iacuzzo
- Yonkers, NY
the staff should bring you on as a consultant
Deleted member 643761
D
Guest
Things aren't always as they seem.
So we may have a better chance with shannon than it seems to you. And we may have a worse chance with jacobs.
sacraig
- The desert
That would be a reasonable take assuming the premises used to firm the conclusion are correct. However, the only indications we have that such a parental battle exists are the message board prognostications of posters who are either too cheap or too principled to subscribe to premium info. As far as I know, there is nothing legitimate saying that mom wants Chicago and dad wants Florida.
On the contrary, the very fact that Underwood invited him for an OV implies that Underwood has no such indications.
I think the whole discussion on OVs is pretty academic. An OV always gives you a chance, you need get those visits with higher ranked prospects in order to have a chance to close. The problem is not OVs, and it was not under Groce either. The problem is our inability so far to close on many prime targets leaving open scholarships in the fall and going into desperation mode in the Spring trying to find answers. Unfortunately, many of our OVs have gone to recruits who are not top recruits, yet, we still were not able to close. Fall recruiting is always the cornerstone of successful recruiting, Spring/Summer is more of opportunistic additions.
We are not going to beat opponents with some elaborate magic recruiting strategy on OVs, targeting, etc. BU needs to turn around recruiting momentum because right now so far in his UI tenure he has not shown the acumen of a really good recruiter. There's still time, but we need a strong Fall recruiting finish.
We are not going to beat opponents with some elaborate magic recruiting strategy on OVs, targeting, etc. BU needs to turn around recruiting momentum because right now so far in his UI tenure he has not shown the acumen of a really good recruiter. There's still time, but we need a strong Fall recruiting finish.
I am with you on that one, I actually heard from a very close source to the situation a couple of months ago that UI had no chance with Whitney but we were in great shape and the leader with Shannon. I have no idea what transpired since then but getting an OV with an Illinois prospect who we were leading a couple of months ago is not wasted time. I would not concede Shannon to FSU just yet...
No, no one knows almost anything that is going on. From Piper's predictions in the last couple of years, well, he knows diddly. I don't know where the one poster gets this 'we' garbage. The coaches get to recruit, use official visits as they see fit, etc..........Some people here, should just stay on the football forum, because it is just too obvious they want to bring the decades of loser mentality to this forum. They don't know anything, but sure do like to propagate the negative in an attempt to show that they know something. Gee, maybe we can get a relationship with the Pump brothers and Adidas, fire Underwood and get Self. It just seems a little too much to me when fans try to decide what prospects get OVs, based on nothing. Some are using the crystal ball garbage from months ago.
His tenure has produced what was at one time the 14th ranked class...so the ranking is the same number as the wins total from last year? Not sure how many other coaches could have pulled this off actually. Yes I know they were late, etc, no one knew about them, they were not our 1st/2nd/3rd choices, they still make up the ranked 14th class. At least at one time they did.
They really, really shouldn't. The DIA should make me the visual branding director, that's about the only thing I'd be qualified for, and to be clear I would not be remotely qualified for that either.
This is very true, but let's acknowledge that even coaching staffs themselves are usually operating with highly imperfect information.
Werner and Piper produce a fine product. But if you're taking it as gospel after the Groce era (or even the THT fiasco), well, best of luck.
Actually, they don't still make up the 14th ranked class, the class is ranked 25th. But more importantly, as has been debated numerous times on this and other boards, "class rankings" are less meaningful and influenced by size of class, etc. Average ranking per recruit (more indicative of individual talent coming in) we ranked 10th in the B1G alone.
I hope they all surprise and we have a great season and enjoy a deep run in the tournament, but some fans are trying to convince themselves that we are currently doing well in recruiting and this IMO is not true. Still some time to turn things around and try to finish Fall 2019 class recruiting strong, but right now, and so far, we are not doing very well recruiting-wise.
Why? It's an all-you-can-eat Hot Take buffet here.
Haven't posted in months but had to after reading all the negative post on recruiting from all the strokes on this board. Since Illni basketball hasn't been relevant for over 10 years not sure people post how 2018 class isn't good. Best class they have had in over 10 years. Also how 2019 class isnt going to be good. Wake up people Illinois hasn't been a destination for recruits since Weber took over. Cant expect to get top 100 recruits until you win again and make the tournament. In Brad we Trust Make Illni Great Again.
Deleted member 643761
D
Guest
The average is no better than the current system. Under your method, the Douglas/Winters/Altenberger class was actually diminshed in rank by adding Reggie Woodward.
I think we did well in recruiting for 2018. I think this class is obviously yet to be decided and I'm resisting assessments until signing day.
Deleted member 643761
D
Guest
Imperfect, of course. But a magnitude of 1000 greater than yours. These guys are talking to these recruits for hours. You're assessing our place with them off of short interviews and blog posts. Go back and look at all the ridiculous posts about any of our recruitments good or bad, and you'll see an absurd level of importance attached to the most trivial of things.
Illwinsagain
- Cary, IL
About a year ago, many on this board were stating that getting Ayo would make 2018 a successful class. He commits, we get several other good/intriguing members of the class and people complain. I know the turnover of the roster causes some concern, understandable. Let's see how the kids play. By the way, I think our team can match up 1-4 with most of the B1G. We just need a positive surprise from the 5. Rant over. So, to get back to recruiting, I can't wait to see what happens in the next 2 months. I would love an athletic, talented 4 and 5. (OK, I know, postionless, etc.)
Staying positive, I really like Anthony Walker. From videos of him etc., he's a very athletic 6'9" who can run the court and shoot the 3. He can probably play small or power forward and also small ball center. He's someone we would love to have. I'm glad that he's here for an OV.
- Status