I get what you are saying - we're good again in basketball so why can't we get the top 15 kids like Duke, KY, Kansas. In reality, even in our hayday under Henson or Kruger or Self we didn't get top 15 kids and the rare ones we did get were IL kids. The decline in IL HS basketball talent is one very obvious culprit. Chicago used to produce some of the top HS talent in the country, that's just not true anymore, IN has been a better source of talent recently than IL. But Brad and staff have done a good job expanding our reach throughout the MW and even some east coast kids, but our bread and butter for pulling in top kids and winning against the elite schools will always be Midwest kids that grew up watching IL
James Brown is the next top 25-30 kid that would be a huge get - he could be a McD AA and will bring a lot of attention in recruiting circles if we land him. We just need to get kids like him when they are IL guys and supplement with really good guys in the 30-70 range in the rankings which the staff has done a great job of talent evaluation to land the best of the bunch in that range. I think we can compete in NIL money with most schools now except a few, so that shouldn't be an issue