Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#728      
In his Soph yearbook, he stated his dream was "to play basketball at the U. of Illinois." Now maybe he did want to get away from same bad influences, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't have gotten him had we wanted him earlier.
Just curious...how do you know about what he wrote in his yearbook?
 
#730      
Harv really wanted Sikma, but he decided on a smaller school where he could develop with more guaranteed playing time. Doug Collins was a similar story, I believe.
Maybe Harv was aware of Sikma. However, after seeing him play as a HS sr., he was approaching 6'6", slow, and had little offensive game. At the time he was a "nice" small school center. But actually, if one did not know JS, (and how could a big time college coach really know?) there was no way to tell what he was willing to do to become the best he could be. And who knew he would grow another 4 in. ? Likely, JS himself has no regrets with his college choice and I can't find any fault with Harv failing to pull all the punches to get him to C-U.
 
#731      
Hot off the presses: "Jordan" Grandison commits to Duke!


Scheyer must hate us so much that he's gained the magical ability to change a player's first name once they leave the portal. This hurts almost as much as when Kevin Sampson pilfered Derick Gordon from us!!!
 
#732      
Maybe Harv was aware of Sikma. However, after seeing him play as a HS sr., he was approaching 6'6", slow, and had little offensive game. At the time he was a "nice" small school center. But actually, if one did not know JS, (and how could a big time college coach really know?) there was no way to tell what he was willing to do to become the best he could be. And who knew he would grow another 4 in. ? Likely, JS himself has no regrets with his college choice and I can't find any fault with Harv failing to pull all the punches to get him to C-U.
My recollection is that he grew to 6’-9”- 6’-10” as a senior in high school, very skinny, who did very well in state tournament. Opened a lot of eyes.
 
#733      
Hot off the presses: "Jordan" Grandison commits to Duke!


Scheyer must hate us so much that he's gained the magical ability to change a player's first name once they leave the portal. This hurts almost as much as when Kevin Sampson pilfered Derick Gordon from us!!!
This one feels much different. Grandison wanted to leave and he picked a great opportunity. Gordon hadn't played for us and his choosing Sampson hurt more.
 
#734      
My recollection is that he grew to 6’-9”- 6’-10” as a senior in high school, very skinny, who did very well in state tournament. Opened a lot of eyes.
I agree with this. Harv saw him play in the state tournament and was very impressed. Said he was going to be a 7 footer with guard skills or something like that.

btw, Sikma grew up in the tiny farming community of Wichert and attended high school at nearby St. Anne. He was class of 1973. Freshmen were already eligible by then. I think 1970 was the last class that was ineligible.
 
#735      

foby

Bonnaroo Land
that's taking the Lird's name in vain
Tyler Perry Madea GIF
 
#736      
Sikma played at a DIII school and would have been able to play with lots of gtd playing time at larger schools.

He went to IWU because of two main reasons: 1) His relationship with Dennie Bridges and 2)his comfort level with the school size - St. Anne is really tiny.

BTW, I was a freshman at IWU when he was a senior.
Jacks sister was at IWU also at the time.
 
#737      
This one feels much different. Grandison wanted to leave and he picked a great opportunity. Gordon hadn't played for us and his choosing Sampson hurt more.

IDKWTI was pretty different. 1) very late in the recruiting cycle 2) Weber really struggled to land NBA level talent (wasn't he top-5?) 3) Weber ran such a clean program where a lot of schools played dirty, that I think it hurt more. With NIL and other changes, it feels like the program is on more even footing.
 
#740      
That was one heck of a freshman class - Cunningham, Brody, Redmon and Thoren - Wow!
Great class but one that hurt Illinois going forward. Cunningham was from the Chicago Public League and once scored 90 points in a game. He flunked out of Illinois and his high school coach Larry Hawkins blamed Illinois. He worked to keep CPL kids from going to Illinois and it cost Illinois , among others, Cazzie Russell who went Michigan where he was an All American.

Thoren and Brody were stars at Illinois but the loss of Cunningham hurt for many years.
 
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