+ Zens
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
Our fanbase is too rabid...Last year it was make the SW16 or its a failure...This year its make the Final4 or Bust!
Illwinsagain
- Cary, IL
FIFY
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I was occupied all weekend and couldn't check the Board. Came back late last evening and paged through the daily recruiting threads, and continued this morning. My goodness, you'd think we lost everyone from last year's team, the coaching staff has not demonstrated a whit of competitive or personnel selection competence in the past several years, and so far we're adding nothing but NAIA benchwarmers in the portal.
Shaking my d$#n head. I logged off Friday afternoon giddy with anticipation for next season, Blackwell or no Blackwell.
The bar of dissatisfaction has been raised again. It wasn't all that long ago that a top 25 raking was a great season. Then they needed to finish 2rd or 3rd in the BT regular season with a semi final appearance in the the BT tourney to be considered enough. A Sweet 16 was mandatory as well.
Now, unless they win it all some fans will consider the season a failure. The team is required to have 15 lottery eligible players or the team has no depth whatsoever.
Coleman is not backup PG. He’s going to start at SG.
Morillo is interesting since he can play 1-4. The thing is we’re counting on him to be ready. If he is, he’ll definitely see the court since he can fill 4 of the 5 spots.
pruman91
- interviewing new NL's daily....I really really am
Nah most fans on this board know we are set. I honestly can't believe the amount of people that don't realize there is only one ball.
Vaaks is a stud and Coleman is a walking bucket, we will be great.
Yes. The meltdown has begun! Love it! Just think about what next year could be like. We have only just begun.
I'm fine without adding Blackwell. That would have been a massive get, but I feel like our roster is good enough without adding someone that could potentially cause more selfish styles of play. I would like to add a veteran guard and a change of pace big that can just be a large man under the basket for matchup reasons. These would be our depth 9/10 guys off the bench for break glass injury/foul trouble scenarios.
Again we have assembled a talented roster with a lot of guys that have a wide range of abilities. I've learned to just trust Brad and he will get the guys and will make it work.
I'm guessing he will slide over and become more of a lead / ballhandler while Vaaks gets a breather
Or, we do what some other teams do and we go out and get a guy this summer specifically to backup Vaaks for 5-10 mins per game
Morillo also keeps being listed as a PG, but idk about that
Sure, and Keaton was our starting SG to start the season but as the year went on he assumed more primary ball handling duties. I have to assume Coleman will have a somewhat similar path into January and beyond.
Plus we are position-less anyways
skyIdub
"I can't tell you. Secret."
Here, enjoy a little detour from our regularly scheduled programming to nerd out about why our Balkan basketball recruiting is probably the smartest plan in the history of recruiting.
www.instagram.com
TLDR: they are the tallest men in the world by average
we have the data on Instagram: "I visited Montenegro once. Our tour guide was 6 foot 5 (1.97 meters) but told us he was the shortest guy from his town. See last slide for video from the tour bus while we went up the mountain in Kotor (72 switchback
14K likes, 393 comments - wehavethedata on April 19, 2026: "I visited Montenegro once. Our tour guide was 6 foot 5 (1.97 meters) but told us he was the shortest guy from his town. See last slide for video from the tour bus while we went up the mountain in Kotor (72 switchbacks). 😳 #montenegro...
www.instagram.com
TLDR: they are the tallest men in the world by average
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annual reminder to not be disappointed when people say we will get every big name in the transfer portal and then we don't...IMO Blackwell made absolutely no sense if we were getting everyone back.
Mirk usage will go up from last season. Stoj will take plenty of shots. Vaaks will have the ball a ton, and Coleman/Ivisic will also get plenty of usage.
There is only one ball.
Mirk usage will go up from last season. Stoj will take plenty of shots. Vaaks will have the ball a ton, and Coleman/Ivisic will also get plenty of usage.
There is only one ball.
I've set a new high score on the Ignore Button.
Is Blake still on the team?Welcome to the Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
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IL Returnees
David Mirkovic
Tomislav Ivisic
Zvonimir Ivisic
Jake Davis
Andrej Stojakovic
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New IL Signees
Zavier Zens (2026 F) committed & signed on April 17th.
Quentin Coleman (2026 G) committed on April 3rd, signed on April 19th.
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New IL Unsigned Commits
Stefan Vaaks (Providence transfer guard) committed on April 12th.
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2026 Recruiting (early signing period)
Ethan Brown (2026 G) committed on July 30th, 2025, signed on November 15th, 2025.
Landon Davis (2026 F) committed on August 6th, 2025, signed on November 12th, 2025.
Lucas Morillo (2026 G) committed on October 24th, 2025, signed on November 19th, 2025.
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Unofficial Illinois Loyalty Portal Tracker by soupy17
B1G Roster Tracker by NarrowJ
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IL players who entered name into NBA Draft
Keaton Wagler declared for NBA Draft on April 11th.
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IL players who entered transfer portal
Mihailo Petrovic entered transfer portal on April 11th.
Toni Bilic entered transfer portal on April 11th.
Ty Rodgers entered transfer portal on April 16th.
Brandon Lee entered transfer portal on April 19th.
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2027 Recruiting
Quinton Kitt (2027 F) committed on November 27th, 2025.
Mason Martin (2027 G) committed on January 16th, 2026.
Happy 4/20, Pru!
In fairness, our expectations should be high for this team - Brad himself says that when the goal is not to win a NC is when he's going to retire. When the head coach himself is saying every year should be a NC or bust mentality, you can't blame the fan base for raising their bar as well. This is also a unique time in Illinois' history when coming off the last two Final Fours we knew it would be a step down the following year when Nick declared for the draft and when DWill went pro, there was simply no way we weren't going to take a step back. Now with the portal and money to spend we can reload every year
I don't blame fans for having opinions on how we should go about the reloading - it's part of being a fan. Particularly when the staff executes #theretention perfectly and gets everyone back and we know we have money to spend this year, why can't we be the big fish and get another top portal player in addition to Vaaks and be in that preseason #1 conversation - it's reasonable to want that. So when we hear "the staff thinks we're good with the current roster" and UConn, Duke, Louisville, Florida and others are stacking additional top portal players while we sit back, I think it's human nature to want to improve our team even more
I would like to announce the winners of yesterday's Cottage Cheese Extravaganza...
co-Gold Medals go to the proponents of Catalina and/or Western salad dressings as CCA (Cottage Cheese Accoutrements).
Congratulations!
co-Gold Medals go to the proponents of Catalina and/or Western salad dressings as CCA (Cottage Cheese Accoutrements).
Congratulations!
chrisRunner7
- San Diego
The only potential downside-- and I have struggled with this conundrum for several days-- is you see a bunch of exasperated posts in response to people you've previously ignored, and I then find myself really tempted to click "Show" and see what sort of crazy thing was posted, lol
blackdog
- Champaign
Because the players we brought back would be top 10-20 portal additions for most other teams which means we had to invest a lot to keep them. Then we add another top 20 transfer, then the #8 ranked recruiting class (which back in the day would have made everyone lose their minds by itself). Look at what those other teams have to replace. They HAVE to bring in big name guys if they want to compete with us
