Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#1,728      
ILL1616
1. BU been phenomenal overall. The program has been leaps and bounds better basically since the day he got here.
2. He's been a great recruiter, in particular relative to where we were prior to him being here.

With that said:
1. Whoever it was that decided Humrichous would get the playing time he did needs to face some sort of consequence. I would guess that is TU, or someone butchering what they thought were "analytics," believing they needed a certain type of player to run the scheme they wanted to run. The guy averaged close to 30 mins per game until the last 8 games of the year where he was at 20, which was still far too much. Absolutely abysmal talent evaluation. Even a cursory look at analytics would agree with this assessment.

2. In game coaching / scheming is at best average by BU. The UConn game was a complete joke last year (albeit against a more talented team and better coach). UK game was somewhere between mediocre and bad. Lack of set plays, out of bounds easy baskets, shot selection -- many things have been just "okay" at best.

3. NIL is part of the game now. We have an advantage in this overall. We're in a better spot that we were pre-NIL. Someone at the program needs to help Brad manage this process better. Part of that is playing guys a little more than you might want to if you know they are long term pieces. Part of it is personality. Part of it is just luck. But let's stop the complaining about how college basketball is ruined. We can build a consistently top 15-20 program here at a minimum.

Needs:
1. X's and O's assistant that is better than TU. Likely need additional analytics help.
2. Prioritize doing what it takes to keep talent that can stay beyond one year. Play them more, pay them more. This is only going to be a few guys each year.
3. Honest discussion between University Admin and Brad/staff about why this is happening here and not at Purdue or MSU.
 
#1,733      
BTM33
I'll say this...

It's the wild west still...there are no rules. Any player can take a visit, sign a sheet, get a check, verbally commit...absolutely NONE of that matters until they are actually in uniform and playing in games for you. And EVEN THEN, they can walk away at any time after.

It's the way it is.

Also...to me, this will be Brad's biggest off-season. We are coming to the table with (essentially) nothing in place for returners (Kylan, maybe Tomi, who knows).

He's gonna need to build a tournament level team from scratch.

It's gonna be a tall task.
 
#1,734      
Heisenbobble
fishbed said:
I agree with this. IMO he wants or believes he can be the “main man” somewhere else.

He will not be that, unless somewhere else is Illinois State or Millikin. As a freshman, he got considerable playing time despite the fact he never took a shot longer than 2 feet and had some difficulty with free throws too.
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Someone like Oklahoma or Memphis is gonna pony up millions for this kid, and I'm willing to bet he'll be a key piece to their success. His rebounding alone is a huge boost to any team, and after witnessing how much this last Illinois team relied on rebounds, I'm quite certain he'll be missed here.
 
#1,736      
TheodoreRex
LvilleILL1 said:
He had all that he needed here. This decision was on him and we will see how it turns out for him.
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I hope things work out well for Morez, but honestly, I don't care how it turns out for him- I care how this turns out for our program. Continuity was priority number one for the offseason, and then adding meaningful pieces on top of that. And the staffs first swing is a major major major miss. Homegrown kid, who's been unbelievably loyal, and is uber talented.. completely botched.
 
#1,738      
Poe's Law
LvilleILL1 said:
Make no mistake, this sucks, but now you can go all in on building around Tomi next year and a bunch of money freed up.
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Man your silver lining has more than a touch of grey.

This sucks, but you’re right. We’ll reload.
 
#1,740      
IlliniFan42
chibar said:
if we are top 10 NIL, and consistently lose guys because we aren't going to pay that much for them, are we top 10 NIL?
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I still don't think we are. I look at this list of freshmen recruits and I figure most of these schools at the top must have better NIL than us. Schools like BYU, Kansas, Arkansas, Duke, Louisville, Kentucky, North Carolina, UConn, Arizona, UNC, etc. I wonder if there's some "technically top 10" loophole that we're not thinking of.

247sports.com

2025 Top Basketball Recruits

The 247Sports rankings are determined by our recruiting analysts after countless hours of personal observations, film evaluation and input from our network of scouts.
247sports.com 247sports.com
 
#1,741      
aveseaboy
Obviously having Kofi back here in Champaign and OA being one of the best big man coaches in the country doesn’t help retain Thunder. Best of luck wherever he goes unless it’s in the B1G.

Get Tomi and Zvoni and top off our magazines 💪🧡💙
 
#1,742      
HailtotheChief
DevILLDawg said:
I mean, Brad has no loyalty to his players so? He recruits over them regularly. Why would they trust him when he says things like expanded role...etc
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No one should be made promises as far as starting or not. If they don't want to earn playing and let the coach set the rosters then go. I wanted Morez on our team but our team just got defeated. There are other good players out there and the coaches need to get them and set a winning line up. Not have it dictated to them by those outside the program.
 
#1,744      
Keisersose
csd said:
KJ, Tomi, Will, Boswell, Trey, Morez seemed pretty solid to me.
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Two of them were transfers which is what I was talking about. So then add Carey, Ben and Jake.

But Morez is gone so I’m just going to step away for awhile. So frustrating.
 
#1,745      
IlliniFan42
My Illini-specific reason for not wanting player contracts is I think we've been net winners from the transfer portal. Our transfers' positive contributions have really masked how poor our freshmen recruiting has been (until this year, of course). Big picture- I don't see a system working out that requires students (because these athletes are still considered students) to attend their colleges for four years. It might be you stop calling them students (and they stop attending classes), but that's its own can of worms.
 
#1,746      
80'sIllini
Miles Leonard said:
Tell ya what. If he is really going to hitch his wagon to Humbrickhouse, and if things go sideways for us next year, then as far as I’m concerned Brad can follow Humbrickhouse out the door. Brad’s undying loyalty to this guy is mind blowing.
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And if "sideways next year" means we lose Tomi too, and we don't get a boatload of solid veteran players in return and don't reshuffle the staff- how can we not fire Brad? I guess that 20+ million buyout would be the reason? If that is the case- that is on Josh. Then he would need to find a "diamond in the rough" young, ascending, dynamic, coach to the prevent the program from falling into irrelevancy and if that doesn't happen- given my distaste for the NIL era and portal, I would be very sad to no longer follow our team.
 
#1,747      
ILL1616
LvilleILL1 said:
Trying to bite my tongue. Typical characters doing what they do. Both sides are at fault a little bit here but everyone fully blaming the staff doesn't know what the heck they are talking about.
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Yes, both sides are at fault. That's the key part, there is blame on our staff.

Even non-insiders can see that the current staff fumbled by playing (and we'll ignore recruiting) Ben Humrichous over Morez for 80% of the year. The staff realized this in late Feb (coincidentally we started playing better).
 
#1,748      
IlliniJeevs
ILLfated said:
Morez has been lied to multiple times. Why trust the process?
george bush GIF

View attachment 40949
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Except Morez WAS playing over Ben by the end of the season. Our highest rated recruit in program history came off the bench, and Morez thought he wouldn’t?
 
#1,750      
Illini2018
Indy Illini Fan said:
Nothing is done … Wouldn't shock me a bit if Tomi entered the portal …

I do think it’s more likely than not that Bam is back but it’s no guarantee …

Oh and Brad would LOVE to have Ben back … Freaking figures … 🙄
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Any shot we could get Hansberry back ?
 
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