Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread (May-June 2017)

[HC Illini]

My thought on the whole Irvin family sphere of influence on these kids is that it was always overplayed. if anything, I think negatively recruiting against us is probably a bigger deal than them actively pushing kids to come here (which, if I'm being honest, probably isn't what is happening now).

I think if any favors have shifted our way, its the Irvin's are/have stopped being so negative towards us and are more neutral on the subject. In all likelihood, hiring Chin has done very little to sway our power in Chicago--as would hiring most anyone who the Irvin's see as favorable.

The belief that the Irvin's are the key holder's to talent in Chicago and that they refuse to give us grade A recruits has become so engorged online. Chin might be the best addition we could've made to help us sign guys like Ayo, but he certainly isn't some golden ticket to 5* 's.

Ayo said himself "I'll have to sit down with coach Nick and see what he thinks". Or something along those lines, I read.

Again, Chin is best friends with the Irvins and if we didn't hire him then Zo would've owned us in Chicago as well as STL. Chin is going to make a name for himself here at Illinois and when the big dogs come calling his name in a few years, we're not going to want him to go.

 

[FT35]

He's definitely going somewhere, Morgan Park, Lalu, and Bloomington are the most likely destinations.

I would put my money on BHS.

Where are you getting Morgan Park from? It must be from that dated Dave Reynolds article from last year? That was never going to happen. His mom is a teacher at Manual.

If he does leave Manual it would probably be for a prep school. For now I've heard he is returning to Manual because he likes Willie Coleman.

 

[ChiefIllini]

This may be an unpopular opinion, but it has always seemed to me that the Irvins legitimately do have their players' best interests in mind

I guess this pretty much sums up what I was trying to get at. Ulterior motives dont seem like that big of a deal.

Ayo said himself "I'll have to sit down with coach Nick and see what he thinks". Or something along those lines, I read.

Again, Chin is best friends with the Irvins and if we didn't hire him then Zo would've owned us in Chicago as well as STL. Chin is going to make a name for himself here at Illinois and when the big dogs come calling his name in a few years, we're not going to want him to go.

I hope you're right. My thoughts are just even if the Illini were my favorite team by far, if a blue blood offers me, and they really do have a great pitch of getting me to a place were I can make tens of millions, I don't see why having a friend of my current coach as an assistant to Illinois would mean more than that.

 

[HC Illini]

Where are you getting Morgan Park from? It must be from that dated Dave Reynolds article from last year? That was never going to happen. His mom is a teacher at Manual.

If he does leave Manual it would probably be for a prep school. For now I've heard he is returning to Manual because he likes Willie Coleman.

I have heard it's an important decision to him and it has changed often.

There are teaching jobs at every school. I haven't heard about him staying, what I wrote was the last I heard and that was about 2 weeks ago.

 

[IlliniJim20]

I have heard it's an important decision to him and it has changed often.

There are teaching jobs at every school. I haven't heard about him staying, what I wrote was the last I heard and that was about 2 weeks ago.

True, but CPS is not exactly a destination for experienced teachers. If Miller were to attend Morgan Park, the family would have to live in the city. Granted mom would not have to teach in CPS, she could find a close suburban school, but that is limiting her options.

 

[Chilini2]

"True, but CPS is not exactly a destination for experienced teachers."

I grew up downstate, have friends and family who teach in Peoria, and I am an experienced CPS teacher. I would not trade my position with these kids for any other district. Not everyone has what it takes to teach in CPS and the ones that do, work miracles to give our students the only chance to attend college, minus being born with athletic talent of course

 

[FT35]

I have heard it's an important decision to him and it has changed often.

There are teaching jobs at every school. I haven't heard about him staying, what I wrote was the last I heard and that was about 2 weeks ago.

Every article/twitter reference that has been written about him recently indicates that he is from Peoria Manual. That is something that could easily be corrected by him or someone associated with him if he was planning on going to a different school.

The only indications that he is transferring have been from message boards such as this that often post inaccurate information. Other than that there has been nothing credible indicating that he will play anywhere besides Peoria Manual next year.

That video that was just posted references him as being from Peoria Manual. Again, if he was transferring then why not correct Mattson?

 

[TownieMatt]

Not quite sure where to put this, but since it heavily relates to recruiting, I'll put it here. Not sure how many IL posters are on Reddit, but there was a really interesting post on r/CollegeBasketball that I thought I would point out. Basically, the poster goes through recruiting and draft data since 2010 to see which college programs help their recruits get drafted.

Read the full post

The data here isn't all that insightful for us, since we've only had one player drafted since 2010 (fewer than Weber State fwiw). But the takeaways for other programs confirm some common conceptions:

To hit the meat of the argument, Kentucky did come away with the best average Draft Score (minimum sample size of 6 players), which takes into account recruit ranking, draft position, and years in college. I tried several different permutations of the lookup tables to change the weight of these 3 factors, and virtually every scenario leads to Kentucky as the top school. The main takeaway would be that a recruit whose only goal is to get drafted as highly as possible as quickly as possible, Kentucky should be the first choice.

More interesting is the race for 2nd place. Kansas and Duke are virtually tied and have similar sample sizes. Then you have Arizona ,Texas , and Washington close behind with smaller sample sizes.

The big disappointment on the list is North Carolina, who is undoubtedly too busy polishing their latest championship trophy to care. Their average Draft Score is well behind the other "elite" programs. Other well-regarded schools that lag in this list are Baylor, Louisville, and Michigan State.

It's interesting here to see the two different recruiting/player development strategies represented here. You've got Kentucky, Kansas, and Duke building teams of one and dones, while North Carolina, Louisville, MSU build teams with guys that stick around in college longer.

 

[Epsilon]

Not quite sure where to put this, but since it heavily relates to recruiting, I'll put it here. Not sure how many IL posters are on Reddit, but there was a really interesting post on r/CollegeBasketball that I thought I would point out. Basically, the poster goes through recruiting and draft data since 2010 to see which college programs help their recruits get drafted.

Read the full post

The data here isn't all that insightful for us, since we've only had one player drafted since 2010 (fewer than Weber State fwiw). But the takeaways for other programs confirm some common conceptions:


It's interesting here to see the two different recruiting/player development strategies represented here. You've got Kentucky, Kansas, and Duke building teams of one and dones, while North Carolina, Louisville, MSU build teams with guys that stick around in college longer.

This is nearly identical to an analysis I have been wanting to do myself, except I want to add coach to the data, to see whether the coach or school mattered more for whether a student athlete got drafted. Good find.

Edit: to clarify, I also wanted to keep recruiting ranking too, to see how much a players own natural talent mattered too, relative to school or coach. Of coarse ranking is a proxy, if a very rough one, but it's the best trackable data out there for that.

 

[Adnarel]

Heh. Chances are that some of us have seen each other on r/CBB... but probably under different usernames. I think it's a fun community.

EDIT: that's a really fascinating graph he's got there. His TL;DR at the end basically nails it... except I'd replace "Kentucky" with "Calipari."

 

[HC Illini]

Every article/twitter reference that has been written about him recently indicates that he is from Peoria Manual. That is something that could easily be corrected by him or someone associated with him if he was planning on going to a different school.

The only indications that he is transferring have been from message boards such as this that often post inaccurate information. Other than that there has been nothing credible indicating that he will play anywhere besides Peoria Manual next year.

That video that was just posted references him as being from Peoria Manual. Again, if he was transferring then why not correct Mattson?

Well this is definitely untrue. I know for a fact he has/is considering leaving Manual and last I heard he wasn't returning to Manual.

 

[TownieMatt]

This is nearly identical to an analysis I have been wanting to do myself, except I want to add coach to the data, to see whether the coach or school mattered more for whether a student athlete got drafted. Good find.

Edit: to clarify, I also wanted to keep recruiting ranking too, to see how much a players own natural talent mattered too, relative to school or coach. Of coarse ranking is a proxy, if a very rough one, but it's the best trackable data out there for that.

I posted a similar analysis a while back with recruit rankings and team success by coach (can't find it at the moment), but it was pretty easy to show that Groce was underachieving based on recruiting rankings. Opposite was true for Izzo, who consistently got good (but not top of the league classes) and overachieves.

 

[7yearillini]

"True, but CPS is not exactly a destination for experienced teachers."

I grew up downstate, have friends and family who teach in Peoria, and I am an experienced CPS teacher. I would not trade my position with these kids for any other district. Not everyone has what it takes to teach in CPS and the ones that do, work miracles to give our students the only chance to attend college, minus being born with athletic talent of course

Thanks for all you do

 

[zpfled]

True, but CPS is not exactly a destination for experienced teachers. If Miller were to attend Morgan Park, the family would have to live in the city. Granted mom would not have to teach in CPS, she could find a close suburban school, but that is limiting her options.

Some of the best public schools in Illinois, and even in the nation, are CPS schools. Also some of the worst.

Painting the quality of CPS schools with a broad brush is common (especially for people who live outside Chicago), but misguided. I grew up downstate and my wife grew up in the suburbs, and the CPS elementary school that we send our daughter to is, in terms of quality of education and breadth of available programs, head and shoulders above any of the schools we had access to as kids. My sister went to Lincoln Park HS, learned Arabic, had study abroad opportunities through school, and ended up with a full ride to Univ. of Texas...and most of her classmates went to great universities.

Just saying, there are some really great destinations in CPS. Certainly there are some terrible ones as well, but I wouldn't expect job options to be a barrier to Miller's mom.

 

[IlliniJim20]

"True, but CPS is not exactly a destination for experienced teachers."

I grew up downstate, have friends and family who teach in Peoria, and I am an experienced CPS teacher. I would not trade my position with these kids for any other district. Not everyone has what it takes to teach in CPS and the ones that do, work miracles to give our students the only chance to attend college, minus being born with athletic talent of course

As a fellow experienced CPS teacher, I agree with much of what you say. I still feel most experienced teachers will not choose to go there.

 

[Indy Illini Fan]

He's definitely going somewhere, Morgan Park, Lalu, and Bloomington are the most likely destinations.

I would put my money on BHS.

LaLu was an option, before Heirman left for Depaul. Would be highly surprised if that is still an option. Latest I had heard he was still on the fence.

 

[Chris Yates]

Latest I had heard he was still on the fence.

Is "the fence" some new basketball feeder program like Prolific Prep?

 

[Thor015]

Easy to send kids to the NBA when they are top 15/20 in the rankings.

 

[drew306]

Easy to send kids to the NBA when they are top 15/20 in the rankings.

So true...

Didn't seem to hurt Fultz or Simmons come draft day that they went to hardly relevant basketball programs and missed the tournament. I find Calipari branding himself as some sort of draft-exposure guru (and being the only coach present, on TV at least, on draft day every year) extremely distasteful and largely inaccurate.

 

[TriCityBurbs]

Don't put all of your trust in me, but from what I'm hearing from someone that has a connection to the staff is that one of our top 2018 recruits will be committing very very soon to the orange and blue..

 

[Adnarel]

Based on timing, could be Finke, THT, or Ayo. Maybe Conditt? I'd joyously welcome any of them.

 

[illinitiger]

So true...

Didn't seem to hurt Fultz or Simmons come draft day that they went to hardly relevant basketball programs and missed the tournament. I find Calipari branding himself as some sort of draft-exposure guru (and being the only coach present, on TV at least, on draft day every year) extremely distasteful and largely inaccurate.

Great points. AAU exposure may be more important than college exposure in the future. Scary how many one and done draft picks this year....from all over, not just blue bloods.

 

[BuddyJ]

Based on timing, could be Finke, THT, or Ayo. Maybe Conditt? I'd joyously welcome any of them.

I would guess THT. I have no information whatsoever besides what I read from this board, but based on the timing (recent visit) THT seems most likely. Ayo is too highly ranked; even if he ends up coming here I think he plays out the recruitment longer.

 

[TriCityBurbs]

Ok, hearing that THT made up his mind. Would have followed Chin to UIC. Still wants to visit Xavier, Norte Dame, Iowa St. heard he likes what BU presented to him and what his role on the team would be. Won't tell you who I got my info from but was someone very close to the players/team.

 

[kuhl84]

Ok, hearing that THT made up his mind. Would have followed Chin to UIC. Still wants to visit Xavier, Norte Dame, Iowa St. heard he likes what BU presented to him and what his role on the team would be. Won't tell you who I got my info from but was someone very close to the players/team.

LOL. If he's visiting 3 more schools, he hasn't made up his mind.

What you are saying is we currently lead. Everyone would probably agree with you.


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