sacraig
- The desert
Has the staff reached out to Billy Donovan's camp about our backup guard role?
@illini0440 @Indy Illini Fan @LvilleILL1
@illini0440 @Indy Illini Fan @LvilleILL1
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
Well… you don’t KNOW that. Florida will get back Condon, Fland, Klavzar… and COULD get or retain Milan M / Hugh / Chinyelu / or even Christian Anderson.
Michigan already has McKinney and Cadeau back… and got McCoy… and COULD get or retain Juke Harris / Morez / Mara.
Those two are definitely candidates.
I’m not sure anybody thought Arizona and Michigan will be super teams last offseason either. We know during the season.
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I totally agree with this. Our roster as it stands is a top 4 roster. We have several guys that can handle the ball at guard/wing after Vaaks. I think our shooting even with losing Keaton will improve with Vaak high volume last year and Coleman. My only concern would be depth incase of injury or foul trouble if something were to happen to Z or another of our experienced 3 guys with size in our front court.. Ben and Z both played a large role in supporting. They were each vital to last season on D. When Tomi and Mirk dealt with injury and foul trouble and right now that is one area we arent as good or deep as last year with really just Z thats experinced. Even so if no one hets hurt its still a top 4 team. If Z gets hurt and not having 2 bodies like Ben and Z then not having will sting, even it can be managed to some degree but is not a luxury we had in the front court in 25-26 but our 1-3 while being younger is stacked.
They'd better get to work. Out of the top 80 xfers, only 12 of them are still available.
Well stated Pru. Almost all independent national basketball analysts rank us as a pre-season top 5 team with the roster we have now, and heap praise on Brad and staff for the terrific job they have done retaining our key players and bringing in new talent that fits our style of play and EDG culture. We are living in the Golden Age of Illinois basketball, and I also ignore those who only emphasize the negative. I trust Brad to add whatever players he needs to fill out our roster and make meaningful contributions, whether as rotation players or developmental pieces.
Not sure why this needs spelled out, but Coleman is going to be relied upon to be one the lead ball handlers if not PG from the jump, whereas McCoy will be off the ball or a secondary creator. Completely different scenarios. I think Coleman should be completely fine as the 4th or 5th option on the team, it’s whether he can be a lead guard in crunch time as a true freshman that has people like myself nervous
Shooter:
Yeah like I said, not trying to argue but not sure how my answer was twisting pretzels, because it seemed pretty straightforward to me. I'll give you some more straightforward answers based on what has been shared and what's logical:
SOMEBODY is going to be the primary ballhandler - Vaaks
SOMEBODY else is going to do it when that primary person is off the floor - A combination of Coleman, Andrej, Mirk, and whoever else floats to the top. KW handled the ball on 87% of possessions, and KJ handled the ball on 86% the year before. Do we need another PG to cover 13% of minutes when Vaaks is off?
SOMEBODY is going to be a fourth big called upon to defend post players - a combination of our 7'2", 7'1", and 6'9" guys. Tell me a roster in America that that rotation couldn't handle serviceably. Also tell me the last Championship roster that had more size than that needed in an 8-man rotation.
the needs presented in playing basketball against a variety of opponents don't change. - Yeah I think that's kind of the point, if you have many multi-dimensional players, it's hard for any one team to beat you in one way because you can adapt against any team.
Outside of that, I trust the staff has a pretty good idea of what they're getting in incoming players (much more so than we do at this point), and there is no point in committing further to this board or otherwise until they can get some reps in and understand how the pieces are fitting together.
Duke now the overwhelming favorite for John Blackwell.
Battle89
- Cary-Grove, the better Trojan team
80% of the fighting here would disappear if a responder with an issue on a prior post called out the actual poster, rather than making broad statements. But there has been a whole lot of yelling, "you people need help", "you guys are miserable", etc. All that does is fan the flames because multiple people feel attacked.
And as to people "just going away"...as long as it is civil, a message board is the place for discourse and differing opinions, and people should be allowed to say them. I would prefer not to have just an echo chamber here.
Thanks as always to the insiders for their notes here, and to Brad & Co for the wonderful program they have built. Looking forward to our summer depth piece adds, the growth of our returnees, and good things from our highly-ranked recruits.
And as to people "just going away"...as long as it is civil, a message board is the place for discourse and differing opinions, and people should be allowed to say them. I would prefer not to have just an echo chamber here.
Thanks as always to the insiders for their notes here, and to Brad & Co for the wonderful program they have built. Looking forward to our summer depth piece adds, the growth of our returnees, and good things from our highly-ranked recruits.
Sounds like Michigan is also involved with thiam from ASU
I agree with you now that that's very clearly the situation. it wasn't a few weeks ago.
if that's the tradeoff... you get to keep stojakavic and Coleman vs getting blackwell then I think most of us would be fine with that. always want to keep a good player in your system and make him great. it didn't seem like that was the scenario a few weeks ago.
thought we could retain and add... which we did. I just want more and since it seems we hit our "budget" by retaining and that Blackwell money is mostly gone now. that's not obvious to 99% of us so it feels a bit like having the carpet pulled out from under us. the portal changes quick... if you don't stop and look around you might miss it
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
It hasn’t even been a week since Andrej returned.
But yeah… it sure feels like it’s been a month or so.
altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
I'll quote a little Paul Simon from Train in the Distance, which I believe explains it:
What is the point of this story?
What information pertains?
The though that life could be better
Is woven indelibly
Into our hearts and our brains.
Doesn’t that just mean we don’t know if Illinois will be a super team too by that logic? Bringing back a final 4 team that (as great as Wagler is) lost much less than floridas championship team the year prior. People are basically mad we don’t have the indisputable, undeniable best team in the country before the season starts
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Agreed, which I'm comfortable with if not thrilled by. Sacrificing ballhandling and facilitation in exchange for enhancing strengths elsewhere is a totally sensible decision.
It's probably Coleman (both Andrej and Mirk are pretty shaky ballhandlers, you wouldn't want to be depending on those guys to bring it up against pressure), which again is okay, but you're going to be in a lot of situations where you don't have both of them on the floor.
If, *IF* 14 Feet of Ivisic lineups become playable for longer stretches, then the minutes needed from a fourth big go down. I hope that happens, I thought 14FOI lineups hung in there okay last year and I want more Z minutes wherever I can get them.
And between the chances Morillo can chip in some non-catastrophic spot minutes and hopefully having a healthy Jakstys to break glass in case of emergency against a rare opponent with quality depth of size that Morillo can't handle, I am less worried about the fourth big situation.
But we're a guard short now that Lee left, which I wish he hadn't.
It's not as if anything is being hidden in the tea leaves here. Bringing our guys back demanded their pre-eminence in terms of roles and money. We could only get them back if they're the centerpiece. Making sure they felt that and believed that to guarantee their return at the expense of preferred portal options was the RIGHT decision, 100%. #TheRetention was priority 1, and we achieved that.
Then once the portal closes everybody is locked in, and so the staff can go pursue that finishing touch without having to worry about someone making a silly decision because they're cranky about their minutes being challenged.
With just a slight note of worry about Vaaks' defense (though it's not as if Blackwell is any standout on that end either) I concur with this.
How many of these reactions can a grand total of zero (0) actual posts of anyone being remotely upset generate?
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Would this be a Toni Billic type addition or someone who could compete for the 8th/9th man?
You mean the backup to the backup guard role....
Duke is always in there as well. They gain more top talent every year than we've had at our program over its entirety.
UConn will likely be there no matter who's on their team.
One random team will be there as well.
I dont think our more glass is half empty fans are worried much about being out of the top ten nor this being a good team. It's a higher floor team. They are worried we haven't been able to do enough to leap forward and more or less are taking the same team back. That worry was amplified by the coaches and insiders here when talking about how much we needed another top tier guy and how much we were willing to pay a guy who would have been our best player. The name on that jersey wasn't as important as the actions the coaches were taking.
Now whatever the reasons are it didn't work out; Blackwell wanted an NBA tryout this year, Coleman and or Vaaks were going to walk, etc......it doesn't change the initial calculus that the coaches believed we were missing something. It was less about depth and more about that 1 more top piece.
Pointing out the same thing the coaches were pointing out doesn't make you a doomer. We are taking a lot of talent into next year, especially by recent decade Illinois team standards. So there is a reason to be happy. However we aren't playing those Illini teams for a championship. We are playing other teams that appear to have more talent. Its not a doomer stance in a season where we retained everyone we wanted to ask if we did enough to advance further than last year and be better than the other teams this year.
The April 26 Champions were created in April 25. Will we be able to say the Illini 27 champs were created over the last week in 26.