Same HS as Alan Griffin if I'm not mistaken. Hopefully O has an in.
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
- Status
We're Stojakovic's 3rd school in 3 years. Seems sort of like Tre White to me - I'd bet on the trend continuing.
All will return, Illinois wins a championship as the first college team ever to win a championship with all-European players, specifically from the Balkans, we become a destination school for the most talented European players, Serbia and Croatia end their conflict and ESPN does a 30-for-30...one can dream.
Stojakovic went from Stanford to Cal when the coach he committed to(Jerod Haase) was fired.
He is a former mcdonalds all american and top 25 recruit that chose to play at Cal and Stanford. I don't think he's the type to just jump schools every year.
If he does end up playing for a new team next year I would bet it's because he got drafted.
Jake is kind of the forgotten man. I'm expecting a serious bounce for him this year.
Bigtex
- DFW
IMO if Stojakovic is 4th team in 4 years - It will be NBA/G League or equivelent.
I'll be uber surprised if we don't have him for 2 yrs.
i think constanza (you can view the player profiles).
That's nice, too bad we can't officially take more than one commitment until March
By my count we could take up to 3? Rankin is on a football scholarship and Fagbemi is a walk-on. Now, we could put Fagbemi on scholarship year to year if one is available (and I'd guess we will / there will be, but you never know). Additionally, starting this season men's basketball is an "equivalency" sport, meaning scholarships can be divided (partial scholarships).
There is still a roster size limitation of 15, regardless of whether a player is walk-on or scholarship or partial scholarship.
We currently have 14 on the roster, with Kylan and Redd being seniors, and BH being a super-senior. While there is a world in which BH is granted another year of eligibility as part of the ongoing Pavia suit, that hasn't happened yet, we don't know if BH would use it, and my understanding is that since BH is a grad student his scholarship/place on the team is not guaranteed year-to-year. So therefore by my count we have 4 open roster spots for next season, of which 2 have been committed to Ethan Brown and Landon Davis. So unless I'm missing something, that leaves open 2 more spots if nobody leaves early for the NBA or transfer portal.
The other thing here is that I don't actually think there is any rule that prevents you from taking a verbal commitment if there is no open roster spot.
We told Nasir Rankin as part of his recruitment he'd have a chance to play basketball. Now you can close that door before he gets on campus if you want, but I wouldn't.
Brad can count.
Unless you seriously believe every single player who is eligible to come back next season will, and we will not have a single player leave for the NBA or transfer portal (and if you believe this, I can't help you), then you wouldn't be closing any doors by filling both those open spots. Rankin is already coming to Illinois to play football, and doesn't need to be added to the basketball roster until well after you know how many players are transferring or going pro.
I personally wouldn't want to risk his football recruitment because I filled too many spots with 3-stars and now I need to give up his.
Don't think Brad/Bret/Josh want to do that, and highly doubt we 'fill too many spots with 3-stars' either, idk jmo.
I guarantee you, Nasir Rankin also understands that players often go pro or transfer. We had 7 players leave this offseason, and not a single one was out of eligibility.
Edit: I just realized, this right here is also a direct refutation of your original post. We had Wagler and Lee not only committed, but signed, despite not having 2 open roster spots available until people started declaring for the draft and transferring. In the meantime we continued to recruit Sarr and others. It did not create an issue. It is going to be ok.
Last edited:
Wagler and Lee filled our roster, they did not overfill it had nobody left. I used my post history in the scholarship grid thread to check the timeline.
Specifically when it comes to Sarr, my understanding is that one of the reasons he didn't commit (leaving him open to Duke) was because he needed Will Riley off the roster, which didn't officially happen until May. Which goes back to my point that you can't promise spots that don't exist to guys that matter. Maybe you can pull that on 3-stars but any recruit worth a damn isn't committing unless he knows what he's committing to.
Last edited:
That's only because BH didn't have his extra year of eligibility when they signed. He got it afterwards, at which point we were arguably overcommitted by 1. But we kept recruiting.
But Sarr "needed" Riley off the roster for playing time reasons, not roster space reasons. Because by the time May rolled around we had the space. Several guys had already portalled (Morez had already committed to Michigan on April 1). And we were already recruiting him well before that happened. Programs are always juggling more recruits than they have spots.
Must be afflicted with HDS
Love to see one of the classics come back!
PizzaHutParkingLot
- Vodice, Croatia
Has the staff cooled on Panagiotis Pagonis?
- Status