I didn't say they were over 6'10". He said "I can't recall any big men other than Meyers with a better skill set". I brought up a few better big men with better skill sets.
GB is a good player and a better person. I love that he is an Illini but I hope people temper their expectations of him because he is close to being a finished product already. He is a good but not great college 5. I expect KC to immediately challenge him for the starting spot though and unless GB dramatically improves his outside shot, he will not start at the 4.
If GB does somehow improve his outside game dramatically (unlikely imo) then they start together.
I think Samba and possibly the staff saw that GB was not going to be the starting 4 and realized there would be almost zero mins and hence the transfer. We will play KC and GB together a little (2-5 mins per game).
I do expect 40 solid mins at the 5 this year and Honestly I am not worried at all about the 4. I expect Jones to gobble up 20+ and KN and Verdonk to battle for the rest.
Not the best frontline in the BIG but not bad at all. I would put them at around 4th to 8th best.
Without going into detail I think our guard play will have a chance to be top 5 in the BIG as well so I am a little surprised that anyone would project us to not make the tourny. Very few teams will be as deep and have good front and backcourts. Some teams will be be better at one or the other but only Michigan St and maybe Maryland will be better at both.
I predict no worse than 7th and as high as 2nd in the BIG. Of course this is assuming Underwood is for real which I believe he is.