Nike Hoops Summit does not immediately mean top 30 level recruit because there’s only 15 or so guys that can be allotted a spot from the US. It more so means he’s a top 15 or so international recruit. There were some guys on Team World that weren’t even top 100 in all likelihood. Tough to project Mirkovic but I doubt he’ll play more than 12 or so minutes this year. Too much frontcourt depth.
Illini Basketball 2025-2026
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I forgot you’re the guy who has Sellers rated ahead of Sarr, so just forget I said anything
Edit: But feel free to list all of the scrubs that played for the US team as you claim… Mirkovic put up Tomi level production in the Adriatic league and we have proof that it translates
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You and I agree on most takes, but not sure why you're completely dismissing his opinion. None of us have any clue how Mirkovic's game is going to translate. Tomi's translated, but Z has had a bit of a bumpier road, though he did face SEC competition. Plus, they're both 7 ft+ with an extreme amount of range.
Mirkovic plays a position that's extremely troublesome, historically, for us. Bouncy, athletic 4's have just destroyed us. Morez struggled mightily on the defensive end just staying in the game because of foul trouble. I'm not sure what type of athleticism Mirkovic brings to the table, but I'm betting it's not to Morez's level.
Expecting more than 10-12 minutes a game of TRULY meaningful minutes is setting him up for failure. It might take him a year or more to acclimate himself to the size, speed, pace and level of athletes around him. OTOH, maybe he handles it seamlessly. He's definitely a question mark and that's perfectly ok.
His opinion was that Mirkovic is a long term project. I thought it was silly considering his accolades. He then walked it back to “he will play 12 minutes a game” which I agree is more reasonable. A guy coming in as a long term project isn’t someone you also expect to carve out a role on a likely NCAA tournament team.
I'd rather start big z in that case. Better shooter, defender and passer than Ben
Illini basketball next year
One problem with these guesses about minutes (other than they’re meaningless) is what are people predicting. Are we talking about what they average per game across the entire season or in actual competitive games or something else? As you point out, Booth averaged 5 mpg. Except, he wasn’t averaging 5 minutes across 35 games as he only played in 21 games. And if you eliminate noncon games that Illini won by 32 or more (4 games) he only averaged 3.2 mpg in those remaining 17 games he played in. And across the 31 games played by Illini that aren’t excluded by that condition, he played 54 minutes (1.7 mpg). So while Riley averaged essentially 5 times what Booth did on a mpg played basis (25.6 vs 5.1), he actually played nearly 8.5 times the total minutes that Booth did (897 vs 107). I don’t pay much attention to these minutes breakdown guesses, and none unless they actually say what that breakdown actually means.
EDIT: See these points were brought up.
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IMO, people keep harping on the "4" issues this team will have. I don't see it that way. We will have Mirkovic, Ben, and one of the Ivisic brothers to share the load, probably Ivisic II. In any case, the use of these position numbers don't really translate to the fluid nature of the game, especially at the high major level. For example, a year ago we were certain that in Boswell, we had found the point guard we needed. Until he wasn't. Same with KJ. Now there's a consensus that Petrovic is that "true" point guard. How long will that last?
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