Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#202      
It's a fine day for

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#210      
Sure, there ALWAYS are late bloomers and kids that get overlooked. But it's hard for me to buy that Butler is one of those kids, considering that programs in his backyard, who presumably have been watching him for years, still aren't offering (ex: Stanford, Cal, St. Mary's).

This is giving me a bit of the vibe of the Tevian Jones recruitment ... kid who got some inexplicable buzz for a few months ... rumored to have gotten some high major offers (I have my doubts they were committable) ... local HS coaches thought the kid was decent player, but not high major ... turned out they were correct. And Tevian was ranked SIGNIFICANTLY higher at this point than Butler. Nobody I have spoken with (admittedly, only in SoCal) has heard of Butler. Obviously, I hope that I am completely wrong, and that Chester has gotten a sufficient sample size.

What's more perplexing to me is that after securing a commitment from a legit top talent in Morez nearly two years ago, we haven't been able to build a class of similar talents around him, and are now fishing in a definitely lesser pond.
 
#211      
Sure, there ALWAYS are late bloomers and kids that get overlooked. But it's hard for me to buy that Butler is one of those kids, considering that programs in his backyard, who presumably have been watching him for years, still aren't offering (ex: Stanford, Cal, St. Mary's).

This is giving me a bit of the vibe of the Tevian Jones recruitment ... kid who got some inexplicable buzz for a few months ... rumored to have gotten some high major offers (I have my doubts they were committable) ... local HS coaches thought the kid was decent player, but not high major ... turned out they were correct. And Tevian was ranked SIGNIFICANTLY higher at this point than Butler. Nobody I have spoken with (admittedly, only in SoCal) has heard of Butler. Obviously, I hope that I am completely wrong, and that Chester has gotten a sufficient sample size.

What's more perplexing to me is that after securing a commitment from a legit top talent in Morez nearly two years ago, we haven't been able to build a class of similar talents around him, and are now fishing in a definitely lesser pond.
Tevian Jones actually ended up having a pretty good college career though and looked pretty good in the summer league.
 
#213      
247 lists them all as 4 stars
Ranked 82, 112, and 124. Transfer rankings are much more diluted. A 50th ranked kid in the transfer portal would be ranked much lower as HS recruit all things being even. But lets agree to disagree. You think nabbing 100-200 ranked players is a success and I'll telling you that recruiting at this level has never resulted in success for this program. Illinois has a top 10 paid staff in the NCAA. I don't think having expectations of landing kids in the top 100 is too high. We were landing all top 100 kids with Chin and Orlando, since their departure we've been landing kids that is very reminiscent to the Groce/Late Weber years.

So if you want to include these transfers, our last 5 commits is 1 kid in the top 100(82) and 5 outside of it.
 
#214      
Ranked 82, 112, and 124. Transfer rankings are much more diluted. A 50th ranked kid in the transfer portal would be ranked much lower as HS recruit all things being even. But lets agree to disagree. You think nabbing 100-200 ranked players is a success and I'll telling you that recruiting at this level has never resulted in success for this program. Illinois has a top 10 paid staff in the NCAA. I don't think having expectations of landing kids in the top 100 is too high. We were landing all top 100 kids with Chin and Orlando, since their departure we've been landing kids that is very reminiscent to the Groce/Late Weber years.

So if you want to include these transfers, our last 5 commits is 1 kid in the top 100(82) and 5 outside of it.

You have it backwards. I'm not sure diluted is the right term to help your case here, because there's many more players in the transfer portal. The transfers are coming from all classes (college FR/SO/JR/SR). There were about 1,500 players in the portal this year. Much harder to be the 82, 112, 124 ranked player in a class of 1,500 than it is in a class of ~300 (just incoming FR). Makes their rankings more equivalent to like 20, 25 and 30 if they were HS recruits. We've done extremely well in the portal the last couple of seasons, there's no denying that no matter how you want to slice rankings and such imo.
 
#218      
He would like to re classify ... But from my understanding, he's got work to do in the classroom if he wants to get that done ... Enough work that he likely would not be enrolled for summer workouts ...
I don’t understand why a player would want to reclassify. It is hard for someone who is 17-18 to compete with a junior or senior in college. I am trying to remember the last player to reclassify and was successful
 
#219      
I don’t understand why a player would want to reclassify. It is hard for someone who is 17-18 to compete with a junior or senior in college. I am trying to remember the last player to reclassify and was successful

For most of these kids that do in fact re class ... I can name close to a million reasons why in some cases ...

Some cases where it has worked: KAT, Jamal Murray, Andrew Wiggins, Andre Drummond, RJ Barrett, Marvin Bagley, Jonathan Kuminga

Some cases where it has not worked: GG Jackson, Emoni Bates, Enoch Boakye, Moussa Cisse, Khristian Lander, Devin Askew, N'Faly Dante, Addison Patterson
 
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#220      
Brad has whiffed on a long line of Top 100 guards. Of the ones he’s landed, most have transferred out.

He inexplicably was unable to land a transfer PG his summer. So his lead guard this season will be a converted forward.

He now appears to be chasing a three star CG whose next best offer is … Colorado State?

Brad’s one of the top 10 paid coaches. This his seventh year here. He has ample NIL at his disposal.

This is not good enough.
 
#221      
Brad has whiffed on a long line of Top 100 guards. Of the ones he’s landed, most have transferred out.

He inexplicably was unable to land a transfer PG his summer. So his lead guard this season will be a converted forward.

He now appears to be chasing a three star CG whose next best offer is … Colorado State?

Brad’s one of the top 10 paid coaches. This his seventh year here. He has ample NIL at his disposal.

This is not good enough.
So if we land Lewis, Butler, Fears and Gill, that’s not good enough?
 
#224      
Ranked 82, 112, and 124. Transfer rankings are much more diluted. A 50th ranked kid in the transfer portal would be ranked much lower as HS recruit all things being even. But lets agree to disagree. You think nabbing 100-200 ranked players is a success and I'll telling you that recruiting at this level has never resulted in success for this program. Illinois has a top 10 paid staff in the NCAA. I don't think having expectations of landing kids in the top 100 is too high. We were landing all top 100 kids with Chin and Orlando, since their departure we've been landing kids that is very reminiscent to the Groce/Late Weber years.

So if you want to include these transfers, our last 5 commits is 1 kid in the top 100(82) and 5 outside of it.
Interesting take. Let’s dive in.

2017 - not a single player in the top 100. Highest ranked was Mark Smith at 146. 5 man class.

2018 - Ayo was top 100 (#30). Tevian Jones at 102 was the only other player in the top 200 at 102. 7 man class.

2019 - Kofi was the only top 100. 3 man class.

2020 - 2 top 100 + Coleman and Lieb. 4 man class. Grandison and Hutcherson also joined via portal making it 6 total.

2021 - Chin and Antigua leave in the spring. Podz ranked top 100. 3 man class + Plummer and Payne in the portal.

2022 - All 4 prep players in top 100 + 3 transfers in Shannon, Mayer and Dainja (all were 4 star prep players).

Your narrative couldn’t be more wrong. More correctly you could argue this specific head coach has had more success with FEW top 100 players with a supporting class of “lesser” talented players.

However, looking at the rankings alone glaringly ignores that success in college basketball is largely related to two things: A guard who can score when you need points AND a big who can dominate.

You’ll find a few examples of champions that didn’t have this, but by and large that’s the rough bleuprint.
 
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