Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#778      

“The class of 2026 includes Davion Adkins, Tarris Bouie, Bruce Branch III, Quentin Coleman, Sam Funches, Caleb Gaskins, Josh Irving, Jasiah Jervis, Taylen Kinney, Colben Landrew, Dhani Miller, Bo Ogden, Baba Oladotun, Ethan Taylor, Kevin Thomas and Anthony Thompson.

From the class of 2027 are Scottie Adkinson,Reese Alston, Dawson Battie, Chase Branham, Jaxson Davis, Adan Diggs, Demarcus Henry, Ahmad Hudson, Jaydn Jenkins, Malachi Jordan, Moussa Kamissoko, J’Lon Lyons, Kevin Savage III, Davion Thompson, Josh Tyson and Darius Wabbington.“
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#779      
I love Tipton's thoughtful and insightful nodding and mmmhmms in the video lol.

Snarky comment aside, I think he's going to be VERY good.
Adding shareholder value by doing things us normies can't do. Like googling each player's highschool and AAU team.
 
#785      
I really really want this young man on the 27-28 Illini.
Ahhh....the level headed thoughts that come with May.

When he goes through some struggles, the 9th man crowd will be out in full throat and will be ready to move on from him.

80% of the posters here threw in the towel on Drej. They had him transferring. A good NCAA Tournament later.....those same people are having full anxiety that he might stay in the draft.

There are very few things in life that will never change. One of them is the insanity of a post game thread after a loss.

Keep the May frame of mind flowing man.
 
#786      
I am crossing my fingers hoping he won’t be … hoping he is the next one and done! Then Q”Kitt for 27-28! Just keep pumping out lotto picks!!! a man can dream right?
This.

If he's one and done, our season went really, really well because he will have answered one of the minimal amount of question marks that this team does have.
 
#790      
I think there's 3 groups of people here for viewing our roster:

1) we did a Blackwell-replacement level addition, as consolation for the insane possibility that we would've landed him

2) We need a #9thMan. (use soph Jake as an example: 2-3ppg on 5-10min)

3) The roster is good as is, we shouldn't need any more additions.

I'd place myself in the second grouping. However, #1 is quite unrealistic given our projected starting group.
I’d simply ask for a 3 and D guy. We don’t have any of those and the way this offense is designed I’m surprised at that. We don’t have seriously good 3-point shooters percentage wise (Vaaks might be that) and we don’t have seriously good wing top of the key defenders. We surely don’t have anyone who excels at both of them.

I’d also take a post defender who has a decent offensive game that can back a guy down and stretch to the perimeter and guard.
 
#792      
IMO, there's a definite top 7 in CBB in any order: Duke, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Arizona, UConn, Tennessee.

Hard to not have Duke and Florida #1 and #2. Though I would throw Arizona in there if they get Peat back.
 
#793      
IMO, there's a definite top 7 in CBB in any order: Duke, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Arizona, UConn, Tennessee.

Hard to not have Duke and Florida #1 and #2. Though I would throw Arizona in there if they get Peat back.

Lets see how it plays out.

Last year preseason AP Top 25:

1. Purdue - finished 6th in B1G
2. Houston - S16
3. Florida - R32
4. UConn - lost NC game
5. St John's - S16
6. Duke - E8
7. Michigan - NC
8. BYU - R64
9. Kentucky - R32
10. Texas Tech - R32

Only 2 or 3 of those teams did anything remotely noteworthy... and that is a preseason ranking from October (for reference, its currently May)
 
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#794      
Lets see how it plays out.

Last year preseason AP Top 25:

1. Purdue - finished 6th in B1G
2. Houston - S16
3. Florida - R32
4. UConn - lost NC game
5. St John's - S16
6. Duke - E8
7. Michigan - NC
8. BYU - R64
9. Kentucky - R32
10. Texas Tech - R32

Only 2 or 3 of those teams did anything remotely noteworthy... and that is a preseason ranking from October (for reference, its currently May)
"anything remotely noteworthy in the tournament"
Several of them did just fine throughout the year and lost in the crapshoot that is the tournament
 
#795      
Lets see how it plays out.

Last year preseason AP Top 25:

1. Purdue - finished 6th in B1G
2. Houston - S16
3. Florida - R32
4. UConn - lost NC game
5. St John's - S16
6. Duke - E8
7. Michigan - NC
8. BYU - R64
9. Kentucky - R32
10. Texas Tech - R32

Only 2 or 3 of those teams did anything remotely noteworthy... and that is a preseason ranking from October (for reference, its currently May)
Crazy that Purdue and Houston were 1-2.
 
#797      
Are the #9thman folks even in agreement with what position we need?

Thought we needed a backup backup power forward?
Well, 9th man’s value doesn’t quite have to do with a positional need, but more-so to add a body who, if thrown into a b10 game, won’t be a liability.

Here’s why the #9thman is important.

First off, as much as we love setting 200min as the limit for predicting players’ minutes… truth is it basically never turns out that way.

Here’s our total minutes played per game over the past 3 seasons among rotational players (what I’m labeling as “rotational” is basically having appeared in most games that season).

2024:

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= 203.9 minutes total

2025:


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= 206.4 minutes total

2026:


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= 204.4 minutes total

So, let’s just say as a baseline it’ll be 204 available to distribute this season. My approximate guess at where things stand with the top 8:

Andrej - 32
David - 31
Vaaks - 30
Coleman - 27
Tomi - 27
Z - 18
Jake - 18
Morillo - 15

= 198

That leaves you with about 6 minutes left for the 9th man. As it stands, Brown or Zens would be the beneficiary of those minutes.
 
#798      
Purdue was pretty good. 30 wins, Conference tournament champs, E8 in the tournament, and an all time historic NCAA assists leader. Houston was no slouch either

They were indeed "pretty good"

Preseason #1 nationally and ended up 6th in the B1G... probably not where you want to be if you were preseason #1
 
#799      
Lets see how it plays out.

Last year preseason AP Top 25:

1. Purdue - finished 6th in B1G
2. Houston - S16
3. Florida - R32
4. UConn - lost NC game
5. St John's - S16
6. Duke - E8
7. Michigan - NC
8. BYU - R64
9. Kentucky - R32
10. Texas Tech - R32

Only 2 or 3 of those teams did anything remotely noteworthy... and that is a preseason ranking from October (for reference, its currently May)
I'd say making the S16 is "remotely noteworthy." Also, if you told me that we'd have 5-1 odds of making the NC game and 10-1 odds of winning a natty In May before the season starts I'd take that, and I think the other 9 teams on the list likely would too.
 
#800      
I'd say making the S16 is "remotely noteworthy." Also, if you told me that we'd have 5-1 odds of making the NC game and 10-1 odds of winning a natty In May before the season starts I'd take that, and I think the other 9 teams on the list likely would too.

That's a fine nitpick (and remotely noteworthy is subjective), but if your team was ranked #2 (Houston) or #5 (St Johns) then a S16 is not really close to meeting the expectation, which was the real point here

Florida #3 and loses to Iowa in R32... that's not great

BYU, Kentucky and Texas Tech to round out the top 10 and none of them got further than R32
 
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