Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#151      
I’d like to pause here and just acknowledge what an improvement we have had in recruiting compared to 6-7 years ago. No longer are we identifying a highly ranked in prospect as an underclasssman and holding our breaths, hoping he is the white knight who will finally turn the program around. And then, either falling into despair when he inevitably goes elsewhere or if he drops precipitously in the rankings, talking ourselves into how he can still be the savior.

I feel like the program is in great hands right now and both our floor and our ceiling have been raised significantly. Staff IDs kids who fit culturally and skills wise and land a fair number of them. Maybe every class doesn’t have an Ayo or Kofi, but we continue to stack classes with top 100 talent, and, especially recently, lengthy shooters. No matter who we wind up getting I think we will be fine, it’s just a matter of how fine. Pretty refreshing!
I agree (though I'd certainly love to land a top 10-20 kid). Heck, a year ago, how many here had heard of Melendez or Podz?
 
#152      

CoalCity

St Paul, MN
DB11 do you feel he’s worth the risk with a extra scholarship available or is their baggage that’s not worth the risk.
No no and no. You don't need or want to take a player whose arrow is pointing so sharply down especially a guy with reported motor and effort issues and a helicopter dad. Just no.

This day and age you need to keep a scholly open for mid year transfers and reclasses, not use it on some guy who is on a downward track just because he's from Illinois. See DJ Williams. Guy started out highly ranked, went steadily downward and couldnt even get on the floor for a bad team at Illinois.
 
#153      
No no and no. You don't need or want to take a player whose arrow is pointing so sharply down especially a guy with reported motor and effort issues and a helicopter dad. Just no.

This day and age you need to keep a scholly open for mid year transfers and reclasses, not use it on some guy who is on a downward track just because he's from Illinois. See DJ Williams. Guy started out highly ranked, went steadily downward and couldnt even get on the floor for a bad team at Illinois.
And usually these guys whose ranking is going down substantially - it keeps going down. Again perfect example is Shaw - he was a top 20 kid after his FR year in H.S. His ranking kept going down through H.S. I think he was still barely top 100 after his SR, but that was sort of inertia. He obviously wasnt a top 100 talent.
 
#156      
I have a lot of fear of wasting our time on recruits that are never going to happen after the Grove years. However, Underwood and co. don't seem to have a reputation for doing that so far, so this gives me hope that the ship hasn't yet fully left the harbor.
- My guess is Cam has a hard time saying no to Chester.

- Ty Rodgers game reminds me of THT coming out of HS.
 
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#157      

Joel Goodson

respect my decision™
- My guess is Cam has a hard time saying no to Chester.

- Ty Rodgers game reminds me of THT coming out of HS.

Whitmore: my read too.

Not a big comp guy. THT was more dynamic offensively, but nowhere close, defensively. I honestly think that Rodgers is more athletic than THT. And I was a huge fan of THT (it helps a lot that he only played one season, FWIW).
 
#158      

illini80

Forgottonia
I did check it out and it looked like a literal textbook phishing site at the time. I can see it's changed since then and is getting updated, we'll see how it ends up.

I would actually be happy to help, let me know how.
Sent you a pm. Would be awesome to have someone from Loyalty working on this!
 
#159      
I have a lot of fear of wasting our time on recruits that are never going to happen after the Grove years. However, Underwood and co. don't seem to have a reputation for doing that so far, so this gives me hope that the ship hasn't yet fully left the harbor.
It’s worth noting that with Groce, there never seemed to be a backup plan. Miss the top guy and end up with random pieces, missing on good players because he focused on getting 1 big time recruit. Undeterred seems to keep one hand on the class as a whole, the other on the big target
 
#162      
Corhen, Oweh, and Schutt skyrocketing up the rankings adds to the already overwhelming evidence that this staff identifies upper-B10 talent early and often. It’s awesome.
I agree this staff does a great job identifying talent, but of these Schutt is the only one the Illini got in on ahead of others. Corhen and Oweh both had a bunch of impressive offers before we got involved. It looks like Oweh actually had an official visit to Penn St. (where it looks like he'll end up) two months before we even offered.

Edit: To add, we were the first, or at least one of the first, to offer Schutt, so that is a good example, but it makes sense as well since he's in our back yard. Just another reason it's a bummer we didn't land him. Sigh.
 
#163      
I agree this staff does a great job identifying talent, but of these Schutt is the only one the Illini got in on ahead of others. Corhen and Oweh both had a bunch of impressive offers before we got involved. It looks like Oweh actually had an official visit to Penn St. (where it looks like he'll end up) two months before we even offered.

Edit: To add, we were the first, or at least one of the first, to offer Schutt, so that is a good example, but it makes sense as well since he's in our back yard. Just another reason it's a bummer we didn't land him. Sigh.
Oweh is a legacy recruit, has/had 2 brothers going or went there. So sure they were on him early.
 
#164      
I agree this staff does a great job identifying talent, but of these Schutt is the only one the Illini got in on ahead of others. Corhen and Oweh both had a bunch of impressive offers before we got involved. It looks like Oweh actually had an official visit to Penn St. (where it looks like he'll end up) two months before we even offered.

Edit: To add, we were the first, or at least one of the first, to offer Schutt, so that is a good example, but it makes sense as well since he's in our back yard. Just another reason it's a bummer we didn't land him. Sigh.
My point is that they jumped on guys not ranked in, or on the periphery of, the top 150, not that they were the first to offer.
 
#165      

hooraybeer

Pittsburgh, PA
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Kentucky with its 2nd top 5 commitment this month and leading in crystal balls for 3 more top 10 recruits.. monster 1st class incoming for CC/OA it appears
 
#166      
1My point is that they jumped on guys not ranked in, or on the periphery of, the top 150, not that they were the first to offer.
I get that, but it's not like these guys were hidden gems. They already had offers from teams such as Florida, Oklahoma, Arizona, Arizona St., LSU, Georgia, Houston, USC, Nebraska, Georgetown, Penn St., Miami, Washington, and Minnesota, months before we offered. I don't think it's a great example of our acumen for identifying talent when literally a dozen P5 teams beat us to the punch, some of them by a full year (Nebraska and Georgetown offered Oweh in the summer of 2020!)

Oweh is a legacy recruit, has/had 2 brothers going or went there. So sure they were on him early.

A bunch of other schools were too. Just because recruiting services have a guy ranked lower doesn't mean that college programs other than ours aren't properly evaluating the talent. I mean, Schutt committed to Duke while he was still outside the top 100. Sometimes a players offers and trendline are a better indicator than the actual ranking. Both Corhen's and Oweh's offer sheets and trend indicated they were legit before we got involved.
 
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#170      
I’m not saying Antigua is overrated but Kentucky would of been just fine without him. The craziest stat I’ve seen is they finished 1st or 2nd in national recruiting rankings every year since 2007 except this years class.
And won 1 national championship in that time NCU, Villanova, and UConn each won two.
 
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