Illini Basketball All-21st Century Team

[DICKnaggie]

I'd put Marcus Domask and Myers Leonard over Powell and Hawkins.

Definitely over Coleman.

 

[SkyysNotFalling]

I saw this for another school on social media and thought this might be a topic this board would enjoy arguing about.

The best Illini players of the first quarter of the 21st century (2000-01 to present).

First Team: G Dee Brown, G Deron Williams, G Ayo Dosunmu, F Brian Cook, C Kofi Cockburn
Second Team: G Frank Williams, G Terrence Shannon Jr., G Luther Head, F Malcolm Hill, C James Augustine
Third Team: G Trent Frazier, G Brandon Paul, G Demetri McCamey, F Roger Powell Jr., C Coleman Hawkins

Domask?

 

[EmeraldCityIllini]

Dee
Ayo
TSJ
Malcolm
Kofi

Malcolm versus Domask has me in a mental pretzel… really difficult for me.

 

[ChiefGritty]

Domask?

Considered, but dropping CoHawk for him makes that third team kind of positionally ridiculous, and he was only here one year. His one year was better than any individual McCamey season, for instance, but IMO it's just really hard to impact a program in one season the way a four-year guy does.

It's the Mike Davis thing I'm kind of finding convincing.

 

[stlrunner]

This is a fun exercise.. Putting together the best team on the court is tough so I'm going to go by production and program impact..

1st Team:
Dee
Ayo
TSJ
Cook
Kofi

2nd Team:
Frankie
Deron
Luther
Malcolm
Augie

3rd Team:
Demetri
Trent
B. Paul
Roger
Meyers (I know - one good year, but our one and only 1st round pick a 17-18 year span , and centers are tough..)

Honorable Mention:
Cory Bradford
Rayvonte Rice
Sergio
Marcus Griffen
Mike Davis

All Bench Team:
Freshman Curbelo
Andres Feliz
Will Riley
Damir Krupailjia
Big Z

The What If Team
Curbelo
Jamar Smith
Podz
Jereme Richmond
Morez

Who am I missing??

Gotta add Kendrick Nunn to the What If Team.

 

[PepeSilvia]

As great as Dee was, do you bump TSJ into his spot just for the increase in size and power? Or are you thinking that Deron’s physical size is enough that Dee can still find a place to work? I mean, it obviously did in real life, just curious.

Or are you not necessarily looking at how these pieces would play together at all and are just filling positional spaces with athletes 1, 2 and 3 in the past quarter century. That may change my thinking.

I think Shannon had the best individual season of any Illini player.

I would put him over Ayo if youre talking simply about peak on floor production. Ayo means more because he resurrected the program but Shannon was better his final year.

 

[Rooftop]

Gotta add Kendrick Nunn to the What If Team.

Brandin Podziemski captain of that team

 

[HensonHall71]

This is a fun, but challenging exercise.

Four of my starting five are Deron, Ayo, TSJ, and Cook. The fifth spot probably has to be Kofi.

I know I’m putting Dee and Frank on the bench. I just think the five I mentioned would be the best 1-5 team. With that group, Dee would be an incredible sixth man.

If you are trying to put the best team in the floor thinking about positions - I agree with your lineup- that team would be tough to beat

If you are doing an “all century team” which is usually more about honors and contribution to the program then Dee is absolutely first team- he was big ten player of the year and defensive player of the year in the same season which had never been done before - I think it’s only been done once since then. But to your point, most would say he wasn’t the best player on that team

 

[ChiefGritty]

most would say he wasn’t the best player on that team

Voters for the All-American teams and Big Ten Player of the Year join me in disagreeing.

Under the rules that were allowed in the Big Ten at that time (which were ridiculous, but whatever) Dee Brown is the single best on-ball defender I've ever seen in college basketball. He just ripped the spine out of opposing offenses, everything that team was keyed on him, as great as his teammates were.

The way Dee has become underrated over the years amazes me.

 

[FreshlySqueezed]

Voters for the All-American teams and Big Ten Player of the Year join me in disagreeing.

Under the rules that were allowed in the Big Ten at that time (which were ridiculous, but whatever) Dee Brown is the single best on-ball defender I've ever seen in college basketball. He just ripped the spine out of opposing offenses, everything that team was keyed on him, as great as his teammates were.

The way Dee has become underrated over the years amazes me.

I was just going to say that I thought Dee was the best player on that team.

There are plenty of stats that support that and that's before you even get to his defense.

 

[stlrunner]

I think because that 2005 team was so balanced, none of his stats really jump off the page if you look at stats to compare players in these hypotheticals. Other than the fact Dee shot over 43% from 3 his junior year on over 200 attempts. Insane.

But he was definitely the most important player on that team in my opinion. As you said, the AP voters and Big Ten POY voters would agree.

 

[the juiceman cometh]

Voters for the All-American teams and Big Ten Player of the Year join me in disagreeing.

Under the rules that were allowed in the Big Ten at that time (which were ridiculous, but whatever) Dee Brown is the single best on-ball defender I've ever seen in college basketball. He just ripped the spine out of opposing offenses, everything that team was keyed on him, as great as his teammates were.

The way Dee has become underrated over the years amazes me.

I think a lot of people's memory of their time together in college has been corrupted by Deron's NBA success and Dee's lack of NBA success. Don't get me wrong, Deron was a phenomenal college player and would have been the best guy on almost any team in the country, but Dee was The Guy on that Illini team and the revisionist history on this never ceases to amaze me.

 

[ChiefGritty]

I think a lot of people's memory of their time together in college has been corrupted by Deron's NBA success and Dee's lack of NBA success. Don't get me wrong, Deron was a phenomenal college player and would have been the best guy on almost any team in the country, but Dee was The Guy on that Illini team and the revisionist history on this never ceases to amaze me.

Well and I don't want to turn around and underrate Deron either, for a team that caught the public's imagination for and is remembered for its great passing he was the best passer of the group. That feeling of the harder you play defense against us, the more the ball is going to magically find the open guy as if it had a mind of its own was all DWill.

For me the big separation between the two is that while DWill was a good and reliable piece for us his freshman year, really he had two years as a go-to star of the team whereas Dee had four.