skyIdub
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
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Hawkins come back? OK - he has been at Illinois and paid his dues. I would love to see him have a breakout SR year like Cook.
Call me old school but I feel loyalty to players that come as freshman (Ty Luke, RJ, Sencire, Jaden, Coleman) or transfer in as underclassmen or JC (Dain, Feliz).
Hard to get attached to transfer portal soon to be seniors looking to launch their NBA careers and making choices based on NIL$$$. It is obvious that Matt and TSJ feel the pressure to score 20 points a game and are always looking to shoot whether or not its in the flow of the offense. It has become very obvious why Matt and TSJ only averaged 10 ppg at their prior schools. This years team has had mediocre chemistry.
JMO I hope if Brad goes to portal he bring in role players or at most 1 starter upper classman like Plummer. I think we have enough talent with Dain, RJ, Luke, Sencire, Jayden, Ty, even Brandon Lieb plus freshman Amar and DSG to field a good team.
Call me old school but I feel loyalty to players that come as freshman (Ty Luke, RJ, Sencire, Jaden, Coleman) or transfer in as underclassmen or JC (Dain, Feliz).
Hard to get attached to transfer portal soon to be seniors looking to launch their NBA careers and making choices based on NIL$$$. It is obvious that Matt and TSJ feel the pressure to score 20 points a game and are always looking to shoot whether or not its in the flow of the offense. It has become very obvious why Matt and TSJ only averaged 10 ppg at their prior schools. This years team has had mediocre chemistry.
JMO I hope if Brad goes to portal he bring in role players or at most 1 starter upper classman like Plummer. I think we have enough talent with Dain, RJ, Luke, Sencire, Jayden, Ty, even Brandon Lieb plus freshman Amar and DSG to field a good team.
AyoDos11
- Southern Illinois
Brad doesn't settle for good teams. He fields ELITE teams.
We are around the 70th best offense in the country and are most likely losing our 3 best offensive players, with two of them being basically the only shot creators on the team. The staff should go after starters.
FIFYOne benefit of working at a university is I always have my gift arsenal available.
Team's gonna need a point guard from the portal. Don't have one on the roster and don't have one recruited. Moretti is a total unknown; hopeful he is great, but who knows? The Skyy Clark flyer ended up being real bad not only for this year but for next year as well. I sure would feel better if Fears was coming in along with picking up a transfer PG for a year, but now we will possibly need a multi-year transfer and need to recruit a HS PG badly. Hate to see us get into a situation like Groce had for years with not being able to bring in point guards. Gotta have them to win in March. JMO
Sharpshooters, sharpshooters, and more sharpshooters
I'd settle for one. But ya, those too.
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sacraig
- The desert
I don't actually know what you mean here.FIFY
sacraig
- The desert
Let's not pretend that Skyy Clark was a "flyer." The kid was a 5 star recruit who had other extremely high quality options. No one would have predicted what happened.
We've taken plenty of flyers on high-risk kids before. This isn't one of those instances. This isn't Matic Vesel.
Somewhat of a flyer in that he was coming off an injury and had "de-committed" from Kentucky after multiple high schools. Agree he had/has other high quality options, and it is very unfortunate it did not work out. I was as excited as anyone when we received his commitment. Wish it would have worked out for sure.
I wish there was a stat for how many air balled threes we had this year. I’ve never seen so many in one season.
Well given the number of high schools he played at maybe you could have known he may leave if he or at least his Dad didn’t get his way. Skyy was still our top recruit with the highest ceiling, could have adjusted to the B10, but it seems his Dad or at least someone wanted it to be right away. I have zero doubt we miss Skyy but no one person is bigger than the team. Given time to adjust it sucks Skyys talent but not the drama it seems his dad caused because I think had he stayed he would be rolling by now. It seems kind of similar to Adam Miller but at least he stayed and contributed a full season.
I am very curious to was transfer PG we may be looking at. At least with a transfer it’s less likely they leave with the transfer rules.
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Phoenix Gill playing right now at the State tournament. He looks good.
I think this kid will be very very good. He has 12 of his team's 28 in the 1st half.
I think this kid will be very very good. He has 12 of his team's 28 in the 1st half.
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Anyone saying 'take a flier' on a kid who was a 5 star recruit is out of their mind. Sure, point to his (rumored) crazy handlers/inner circle or # of high schools. That's par for the course with most kids rated that highly. Skyy was supposed to be our next great PG. Didn't happen, but let's not pretend he was a 'reach' by any means.
FloridaMan says some pretty wild things in this forum and many times I think it’s just performative. Sky wasn’t a flier, and his abrupt departure stinks. But Brad has done pretty well at getting guards, I’ll be patient that Brad rectifies the situation in the portal getting shooters and guards. There will be PLENTY of options in the portal in terms of experienced guards.
This made me wonder - has BU ever had a player that he recruited stay all four years?
Trent and Monte were Groce recruits. I can't think of any other four year players in the Underwood era.
Lieb next year looks to be the first real one
Andrew Funk
Phoenix Gill looks really good today. Also looks taller than 6-2. Probably because he's long for his size. Even better.
Joel Goodson
- respect my decision™
Gill has improved a stuff-ton in the past year. If he can keep it up (or close), look out.
What are our chances on Gill Jr. insiders?
Certa looked....okay in the game last night. Something like 18/8/3. Smooth stroke from three but everything else was meh, as previously mentioned by a few on here. The rebounds I think we're mostly a product of being one of the taller kids and more than a few came from free throws...not like he was Ty-esque out there. When he did drive, he had okay handles, but I don't think he scored.
Kansas State got a couple nice recruits from Illinois in Ames from Kenwood and Rich from East St Louis
Too soon
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