Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

[jsmoke2215]

Nico for the Vols holding out of spring ball like he's an NFL QB that just got franchise tagged is hilarious. It's all nonsense now.

 

[RabidDawgClassic]

the only difference is that Pizza Hut probably doesn't care what team he plays for. they'll pay up regardless. how many college NIL donors can say the same?

Yes, but who’s to stop, say, Berkshire-Hathaway next year from deciding, say, Tomislav Ivisic, would make a great spokesman for $50 million, if only he played for, say, Creighton, gosh darn it?

 

[ThePortalMadeMeDoIt]

You are the true insider in here. Thank you

 

[Kendall Gill’s Uncle]

I agree that roster stability would make for a better fan experience. But I’m not sure a cap on NIL budgets actually fixes that. It seems like the only “problem” it would fix is boosters having to pay more and more each year without any guaranty of success. And I don’t view that as a problem. I view that as the cost of doing business, and if you don’t like it you should get out of this business.

A cap wouldn’t work. It would just go back to under the table payments and the NCAA can’t regulate anything.

Better scenario is that donors etc realize this money is crazy, they aren’t getting value from it and payments go down.

 

[PizzaHutParkingLot]

The order for radio silence on potential transfers in full effect after missing on Josh Dix.

Almost all information is coming from the player side, mostly from agents.

Big hitter Illinois donors want results this year.

Btw, no one could possibly know how many teams are spending $10m. GMAB.

 

[IlliniFan42]

A cap wouldn’t work. It would just go back to under the table payments and the NCAA can’t regulate anything.

Better scenario is that donors etc realize this money is crazy, they aren’t getting value from it and payments go down.

I agree that a cap won't work, but I also don't see the latter occurring. Game theory says donors should keep spending because unless they all agree to spend less, the one that spends more wins.

 

[Illini92and96]

Agree

~900 billionaires in the US. $10 million is only 1% of a billion. Even if one's billions are just parked in T-Bills getting 3%, $10 million per year in NIL isn't even eating into their net worth. What is more likely driving this market is ADs or Coaches that can round up 10 alumni or so whose wealth sums to a level where they are spending sub 1% of their net worth on their college basketball hobby every year.

I've worked directly for a billionaire on a non-economically constrained project. In some respects it would have been easier to set expectations if there were real financial constraints.

So what I think cooks the current NIL game in the longer term is that there is only one national championship available per year. People spending that much expect big game wins, even if it isn't a huge sacrifice on their part to keep up the spending. Top 14 on some efficiency metric their latest trophy wife has never heard of, won't cut it if the big wins don't start come after a few years of big spending.

Ok, ok, fine. Guilt me into it. I’ll call Josh and give him some of my t-bill revenue steam. No new Bugatti this year for me.

 

[NarrowJ]

Coaches are literally the ones in the bidding wars with the players. They literally know exactly what players are demanding and what schools are paying.

Have you never been in any kind of price negotiation? It’s hardly secret.

If you want to treat this poll of random college coaches as gospel, I won't stop you. That's the point where I think we can agree to disagree, though.

But, look around you:

Josh Dix $2M? hmm
Sellers? We equaled that offer but Providence sold him a bigger role, which how could they not?
Ian Jackson $3M, he gone
Malik Moore $1M, we said nope its too much

Werner was the guy you cited and his last podcast made it sound like these 2 wing spots they're looking for overlooked guys or guys coming off injury to keep the price tag low

I mean why wouldn't I hope you are right though? If we have top 10 NIL, then we have nothing to worry about other than, like say mono, I guess

 

[WeWillWhen]

If you aren't losing battles, you are chasing the wrong guys.

 

[ImGonnaBeILL]

Illinois is gonna have to pony up $3-4m to secure a high level wing. If they don't, they won't get one (including Sarr).

At which point I think you're looking at Coward/Storr. And the latter, I don't believe will come as cheap as believed either in this NIL environment. Everyone is a 1-year rental at this point so you really don't worry about what Storr does next season when he's out of eligibility. Coward looks like a nice looking option [can get own shot / can defend / can catch & shoot]

"Illinois has money" I think we're going to see how much of that is based on last year's NIL figures....vs. this year's inflated NIL environment that's just exploded. I think we've already got our answer here but perhaps the Khans pony up.

You get the sense that reality is setting in that they aren't anywhere close to competing for these top level guys.

 

[Govoner Vaugn Fan]

I agree, I think there are probably a lot of schools in the same realm but we don't seem to be a true top 10 nil program with the way we are getting outbid for guys.

We had big splashes in Shannon and Mayer that year but haven't really been more getting value guys since.

I think it's pretty clear that we are at least behind Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Duke, UNC, BYU, Louisville, Indiana, and UConn. Which is 10 deep there and I wouldn't be surprised to see Michigan, Oregon(if they spend it on basketball), Texas, Texas Tech, Houston, Tennessee, St Johns(with Pitino fundraising), Florida, Arizona, or Baylor spend more.

I think Illinois likely has a comparable amount to that 2nd group but that would put them more in the 10-20ish range.

Or, maybe the staff knows more than we do about players yet to enter the portal, and/or players expected to withdraw from the NBA draft.

 

[Red77sng]

Anybody know what Neel Ganta's role in all of this is?

Buddies with TU & Hamer

 

[BashCtIllini]

If you want to treat this poll of random college coaches as gospel, I won't stop you. That's the point where I think we can agree to disagree, though.

But, look around you:

Josh Dix $2M? hmm
Sellers? We equaled that offer but Providence sold him a bigger role, which how could they not?
Ian Jackson $3M, he gone
Malik Moore $1M, we said nope its too much

Werner was the guy you cited and his last podcast made it sound like these 2 wing spots they're looking for overlooked guys or guys coming off injury to keep the price tag low

I mean why wouldn't I hope you are right though? If we have top 10 NIL, then we have nothing to worry about other than, like say mono, I guess

Because there is no salary cap, I'm not sure you can get anyone good at a low price.

When you add in that every player that had a good season is looking to move up, that means even the middle tier P5 teams are losing players. They need guys to fill out their rosters. So while we may be sitting there saying, he'd be a backup here, we're not paying $1 m, another P5 team could be saying, we need a starter. We can't afford $2 m or more for the top guys, but we can pony up $1 m for him.

So if we think we're going to find someone on the cheap, I think the sheer amount of turnover leading to insane salaries and ridiculous amounts of teams trying to fill out a starting 5 will make that awfully hard to do.

 

[OrangeKrush1981]

Interesting perspective. Why does a cap work in the NBA? Or are there under the table payments there?

 

[illinifan1987]

According to this, we're #2 in revenue sharing. Even if we don't have a top 10 NIL package, we're top 2 here baby!

Men’s Basketball Teams:​

Est Revenue Sharing Men's Basketball	Conference	Basketball Team Revenue Share	# of Players	Average per player	Total Revenue Sharing 2025*	Revenue % Basketball	AD Annual Revenue**

Louisville	ACC	6,178,131	15	411,875	20,500,000	30%	111,396,762
Illinois	Big Ten	5,657,287	13	435,176	20,500,000	28%	99,358,957
Missouri	SEC	4,709,321	15	313,955	19,418,455	24%	88,265,705
Iowa State	Big-12	4,271,867	13	328,605	18,365,450	23%	83,479,317
Arkansas	SEC	4,001,897	15	266,793	20,500,000	20%	132,103,766
Minnesota	Big Ten	3,588,361	14	256,312	20,500,000	18%	113,102,807
Texas Tech	Big-12	3,265,487	14	233,249	18,258,244	18%	82,992,017
Tennessee	SEC	3,122,535	15	208,169	20,500,000	15%	134,277,934
Ohio State	Big Ten	3,090,327	14	220,738	20,500,000	15%	215,167,642
Wisconsin	Big Ten	2,923,745	15	194,916	20,500,000	14%	137,164,382
Kansas State	Big-12	2,856,660	15	190,444	16,751,854	17%	76,144,789
Mississippi	SEC	2,783,387	15	185,559	20,500,000	14%	101,643,972
Oregon	Big Ten	2,286,842	15	152,456	20,500,000	11%	109,439,421
Colorado	Big-12	2,256,597	15	150,440	14,090,852	16%	64,049,328
Georgia	SEC	2,217,185	14	158,370	20,500,000	11%	125,667,798
Louisiana State	SEC	2,170,071	15	144,671	20,500,000	11%	138,574,324
Washington	Big Ten	2,157,826	15	143,855	20,500,000	11%	98,468,704
Utah	Big-12	2,156,117	15	143,741	16,049,837	13%	72,953,805
Penn State	Big Ten	1,903,563	15	126,904	20,500,000	9%	152,551,993
Washington State	Pac-12	1,558,364	15	103,891	12,709,241	12%	57,769,277
Colorado State	MW	546,588	15	36,439	5,117,008	11%	23,259,125
Arkansas State	SBC	207,168	15	13,811	1,805,824	12%	8,208,289
Tennessee Tech	OVC	175,121	15	11,675	721,811	24%	3,280,961
Appalachian State	SBC	134,374	15	8,958	3,626,477	4%	16,483,988
North Dakota	MVC	107,686	14	7,692	2,472,797	4%	11,239,985
Georgia Southern	SBC	99,120	15	6,608	2,095,770	5%	9,526,227
Idaho	Big Sky	70,443	15	4,696	1,270,624	6%	5,775,565

Power 5 Average	20 Schools	3,157,779	15	218,506	19,107,197	17%	109,728,635

 

[MULEDOG35]

 

[wettsten]

Yes, but who’s to stop, say, Berkshire-Hathaway next year from deciding, say, Tomislav Ivisic, would make a great spokesman for $50 million, if only he played for, say, Creighton, gosh darn it?

well, that's the kind of NIL that would expect some kind of ROI else their stock is cooked. imagine explaining to your shareholders that you spent their money on a NCAA championship. regardless, we can't compare NBA NIL vs college NIL. college NIL is just being abused as a placeholder for player salaries because the NCAA is too weak. i think it will find a balance but it's chaotic until someone can apply some order.

 

[Calvin]

I agree, I think there are probably a lot of schools in the same realm but we don't seem to be a true top 10 nil program with the way we are getting outbid for guys.

We had big splashes in Shannon and Mayer that year but haven't really been more getting value guys since.

I think it's pretty clear that we are at least behind Kansas, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Duke, UNC, BYU, Louisville, Indiana, and UConn. Which is 10 deep there and I wouldn't be surprised to see Michigan, Oregon(if they spend it on basketball), Texas, Texas Tech, Houston, Tennessee, St Johns(with Pitino fundraising), Florida, Arizona, or Baylor spend more.

I think Illinois likely has a comparable amount to that 2nd group but that would put them more in the 10-20ish range.

It's possible that early on Illinois was top-10, but things escalated quickly. My sense is similar to others that put us in the 20ish range. If you're in the 20-30 range and going after big fish, you're going to have to be very good at identifying talent, and to use a poker analogy, when the big stack comes around with room to overpay, bow out for better pot odds later.

Staff has shown they can find difference makers. This year we didn't see it come together, likely because we were young, turning over the entire roster, and lost some momentum with injury/illness. I suspect they'll correct much of that this time around (as well as find some new problems).

 

[Scoregasm]

 

[GrayGhost77]

 

[RabidDawgClassic]

well, that's the kind of NIL that would expect some kind of ROI else their stock is cooked. imagine explaining to your shareholders that you spent their money on a NCAA championship. regardless, we can't compare NBA NIL vs college NIL. college NIL is just being abused as a placeholder for player salaries because the NCAA is too weak. i think it will find a balance but it's chaotic until someone can apply some order.

Is Shaq worth what he’s getting from Home Depot? Is Caitlin Clark worth what State Farm is paying her? What is the ROI on those celebrity endorsement? Are the stockholders upset about that? I would assume that as long as profits otherwise can be maintained, the cost of doing business will be signed off on, no matter how absurd it may be.

 

[TheodoreRex]

No interest in Rodney Rice from Maryland???

 

[JD76]

It’s about money AND coaching.

 

[Heisenbobble]

 

[Kendall Gill’s Uncle]

I agree that a cap won't work, but I also don't see the latter occurring. Game theory says donors should keep spending because unless they all agree to spend less, the one that spends more wins.

I think you also have to consider what’s in it for them. In this case it’s essentially pride, because unless I’m crazy there’s no financial return for them.