Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#301      
jamarvelous31
NarrowJ said:
You say he’s 7th but it’s because Jakstys and Fagbemi and so on are ahead of him which of course I wasn’t including guys who aren’t even in the rotation, lol come on

He’s been inconsistent, we all agree on that… I have to wonder how much these 3-4 lower body injuries over the course of the season have affected him
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...but hes also 5th in TRPG and 5th in TRB per 40 if you only look at rotation players. Id still say he's not great at it.

Injuries for sure. Being sick and being new didn't help either. Juice made a good point, this seems like who he is as a player. A very nice human being but a poor fit for what Brad wants to do. It's still surprising that he was the off-season top target..
 
#302      
EmeraldCityIllini
jamarvelous31 said:
I wouldn't say Iowa is a top team but regardless it's telling that IL was 2-4 in the games you listed.
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Your post said he only runs it up against "bad teams", I took Iowa as making the tournament certainly a good team, but not a "top team".

What's telling to me about the MSU loss was Keaton Wagler went 2-16, not Andrej going 8-14 with 7 rebounds - blaming Andrej for that seems wild? Andrej went for 26 on 11-16 shooting versus Bama, saying its telling about him that that was a loss also seems wild. But if thats what your eyes told you 🤷‍♀️

As for your other post on 3 point shooting. Last year we shot a ton of threes too, but were top 20 in pace. This year, we're like low 200's. Again, if we stay here in pace (which i pray to the Lord we do not), i agree it's too much money for our program. If we're back towards last year, or somewhere closer to the middle, I'd like him back.
 
#303      
NarrowJ
jamarvelous31 said:
...but hes also 5th in TRPG and 5th in TRB per 40 if you only look at rotation players. Id still say he's not great at it.

Injuries for sure. Being sick and being new didn't help either. Juice made a good point, this seems like who he is as a player. A very nice human being but a poor fit for what Brad wants to do. It's still surprising that he was the off-season top target..
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I shouldn’t let the rebounding thing hold up the rest of the conversation, I was not saying he’s a great rebounder à la Rodman or something like that, but just pointing out he is a big contributor to rebounding on a team that is great at it.

It is surprising he was the offseason top target, so to speak. I’m honestly not sad we didn’t give the money to Ian Jackson, Josh Dix or Dame Sarr though. If you go look at the guys ranked ahead of Andrej in the 247 transfer portal rankings from last offseason, he’s had a better year than half of them.

Yet I still think he earns a “didn’t meet expectations” but I don’t think it’s nearly as egregious as others, I suppose, while also trying to give him a break to some degree because of all of the lower body stuff.
 
#304      
the juiceman cometh
STLini25 said:
To not be an all time bad defender. You only mentioned his offense. He’s fine on offense. He is a huge liability on defense.
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Is he really worse on defense with us than he was with Cal?

One of these is this year and one of them last year. Guess which is which.

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#306      
Rap47
STLini25 said:
I have no doubt he was a bad defender previous to Illinois. I had no previous knowledge of his defensive ability prior to Illinois but I know he is an awful defender this year.
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Name a wing that has had a great game against Illinois. Andrej has trouble guarding a quick but our best defender can't defend that king of player. He mostly has to guard a smaller and quicker player .
 
#308      
illiniguy24
Indy Illini Fan said:
We had the funds … We just had already allocated them and Brad wanted AS …

Had the funds for guys like Ryan Conwell, Rodney Rice (yes I know he’s hurt), Dailyn Swain, AJ Storr, Tyon Grant Foster … Just to name a few …

We had the funds for Ace Miller … Brad went with Petro … Which cost us even more …

Part of the reason I think this whole Euro model was the way Brad went was because we don’t have the relationships with the key people like we used to …
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I’ve watched plenty of Louisville this year and I’m not convinced Ryan Conwell helps this team. Extremely high volume and way less efficient than last year.

My buddies and I have a joke that whenever it’s crunch time for Louisville we text each other:

“It’s Ryan Conwell time”
-Ryan Conwell

Lol
 
#310      
From the cheap seats
#316      
jamarvelous31
From the cheap seats said:
His size and three-point prowess would seem to fit perfectly into the Illini offense. Also, his jump from his freshman year to his sophomore year is a great trend. If he can defend and rebound, sign me up.
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I have not seen a single second of his film so obviously trust the staff's eval.

Just from stats there seems like a lot of red flags: he has a lower eFG% than Stoj, 1 assist per game w/ a negative ATO, 31% usage and a -1 BPM because of his D. He scored well against some bad high majors (Rutgers, BC & Seton Hall) but seems like a 1-way chucker.
 
#317      
AirTran
EmeraldCityIllini said:
Your post said he only runs it up against "bad teams", I took Iowa as making the tournament certainly a good team, but not a "top team".

What's telling to me about the MSU loss was Keaton Wagler went 2-16, not Andrej going 8-14 with 7 rebounds - blaming Andrej for that seems wild? Andrej went for 26 on 11-16 shooting versus Bama, saying its telling about him that that was a loss also seems wild. But if thats what your eyes told you 🤷‍♀️

As for your other post on 3 point shooting. Last year we shot a ton of threes too, but were top 20 in pace. This year, we're like low 200's. Again, if we stay here in pace (which i pray to the Lord we do not), i agree it's too much money for our program. If we're back towards last year, or somewhere closer to the middle, I'd like him back.
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"What's telling to me about the MSU loss was Keaton Wagler went 2-16, not Andrej going 8-14 with 7 rebounds"

I am hoping we are all Illini fans here. Pointing to stats in a single game isn't constructive for anyone. Teams win and teams lose. Wagler had 6 rebounds in the MSU game we had a lane violation and gave up an offensive rebound with 12 seconds remaining in that game the MSU game. Either of those don't happen, we win. We didn't win or lose based on any one player's performance. And performances are driven by whom the individual player is matched up against.

Wagler was 10-12 from the FT line against MSU. He got the **** kicked out of him and kept on going.

I think it would be great if we as fans could just support the players and the coaches - understand that the both the offensive and defensive approach our coaching staff deploys is quantitative in nature and depends on the three things:

(1) Rebounding
(2) Making free throws
(3) Straight MTM defense or 2 man game with some zone mixed in.

Everything we do is based on how we match up MTM against the opposition. Good old fashioned basketball with 3 pt shots mixed in.

That's what we play and how we play. Would be great if we all could just get behind the players, coaches and stop trying to believe that any one of us some type "enormous insight."

How two players performed in an individual road game? Really?
 
#318      
EmeraldCityIllini
AirTran said:
"What's telling to me about the MSU loss was Keaton Wagler went 2-16, not Andrej going 8-14 with 7 rebounds"

I am hoping we are all Illini fans here. Pointing to stats in a single game isn't constructive for anyone. Teams win and teams lose. Wagler had 6 rebounds in the MSU game we had a lane violation and gave up an offensive rebound with 12 seconds remaining in that game the MSU game. Either of those don't happen, we win. We didn't win or lose based on any one player's performance. And performances are driven by whom the individual player is matched up against.

Wagler was 10-12 from the FT line against MSU. He got the **** kicked out of him and kept on going.

I think it would be great if we as fans could just support the players and the coaches - understand that the both the offensive and defensive approach our coaching staff deploys is quantitative in nature and depends on the three things:

(1) Rebounding
(2) Making free throws
(3) Straight MTM defense or 2 man game with some zone mixed in.

Everything we do is based on how we match up MTM against the opposition. Good old fashioned basketball with 3 pt shots mixed in.

That's what we play and how we play. Would be great if we all could just get behind the players, coaches and stop trying to believe that any one of us some type "enormous insight."

How two players performed in an individual road game? Really?
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Ironically, exactly what my post was trying to. This was in regards to say the original post saying "Andrej is bad against good teams, and it's telling we're 2-4 when he scores well".

we 100% win together and lose together - i have very little interest in playing ROI compared to team ROI and Keaton Wagler is flippin' awesome. My point was instead of complaining about andrej going 8-14 against MSU and saying that's a reason we lost, how about we look at the much broader team picture.
 
#323      
1m4tr
PleaseMakeABowlGame said:
I’d like Power from Penn as a transfer. 43% from 3.
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Dude is a classic kid that couldn’t make it in two big time program stops and is now excelling at his proper level. Don’t get me wrong he is a very good player but would you want him to take a ton of money to come and give us half of what he does at Penn? I’d rather have Cade Tyson tbh.
 
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