Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#427      

Heisenbobble

Heisenbobble
Heisenbobble
BashCtIllini said:
They play the local Bloomington Normal schools which are much bigger than them and some catholic schools that are bigger than them. DePaul Prep played a much much tougher schedule than them though.

My guess would be the only D1 guy Certa played was Ty Pence, but they went zone against him. Probably should have tried something else because Pence went for 41. I think Certa had around 30 himself in that game, a loss.

Certa is a unanimous 1st team all stater by both the coaches and media, which is impressive for a Jr. You can clearly see the kid can shoot, but 2 things concern me about him. His percentage was under 37% for the year from 3. Yes he took a ton of them, so surely he took some bad shots because his team looked to him to score, but shooting won't get easier in the Big Ten. The other thing is, even though he scored 18 today, he couldn't get open and he couldn't defend DePaul Prep.

He's got a year to improve, but I'm with those that say, he still has some to prove in the summer. Right now I think he is a straight up specialist. I don't think he can defend a Big Ten wing. Something I question is, if the staff is interested in Certa, why weren't they interested in Asa Thomas? Thomas is taller at 6'7", was a 2nd team all state guy in class 3A and also a 3 pt guy. My guess would be it's a simple as they didn't feel the need for 3 pt shooting at this time last year and now it's too late.
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Is Certa a better shooter than Pence? I know Illinois showed some interest in Ty, but backed off. What makes Certa stand out over Pence?
 
#430      

Eternal Optimist

E
Eternal Optimist
sacraig said:
He did such a terrible job with Ayo. :rolleyes:
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I think the big difference here is character. Sometimes it’s tough to find kids with the entire package (skills, character, work ethic, attitude, and support). Usually it’s “sacrifice this for more of this” and hope it works out in the end. Podz did seem to check those boxes, but who knows what was said behind closed doors. It is TOUGH for any kid to be a star in high school and then not contribute much their freshman year of college because the depth is there and it isn’t your turn up yet due to quality.

What I do think a lot of people tend to overlook on this thread is the scoring output along with everything else would not be the same if Podz were still here. He is the alpha on that team, and great for him! But he would likely not be that here and this would not be putting up those numbers that he has at Santa Clara. Would love to see what could have been because I think it could have been awesome, but it isn’t apples to apples and thinking numbers simply transfer because of the athlete.
 
#432      

BashCtIllini

BashCtIllini
BashCtIllini
Heisenbobble said:
Is Certa a better shooter than Pence? I know Illinois showed some interest in Ty, but backed off. What makes Certa stand out over Pence?
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In my opinion yes. I think Pence is a better athlete.

I think the recruitment of Certa is simply because we are awful from 3. We are currently 336th in the nation as a team in 3 point shooting at 30.9%. Michigan State is shooting 39.5% as a team. Penn State is shooting 38.7%. We don't have a single player shooting as good as their team percentages. In fact, a total of 7 Big Ten teams shoot better as a team from 3 than any individual player we have on the team (I didn't include Goode since he's only take 16 3s this season).

So that's where I said, had Underwood known we were this weak with 3 pt shooting, would he have recruited Asa Thomas more last year? Thomas shot 40.3% from 3 as a Jr on 243 attempts and 85.2% FTs. Compare that to Certa's Jr year numbers he shot 36.3% from 3 on 306 attempts and 78.3% FTs. I can't find Thomas's Sr year stats, but he played well enough to be 2nd team All State in class 3A. Thomas also shot 38% from 3 in AAU play and was the most efficient offensive player on the circuit. He's going to Clemson.

I just bring Thomas up to show this was a guy we showed pretty minimal interest in. He came down to campus, but I don't believe we ever offered. If we did offer, it certainly wasn't a committable offer. I didn't follow his recruitment, but it looks pretty similar to Certa's. So that makes me question, had we shot 34% or 35% from 3 as a team instead of 31%, would Certa be a target? They played on the same AAU team. So talking to their coach would give you a pretty good insight on which player is better. Same team as Jaden Schutt too. The Illinois Wolves have had a string of very good 3 pt shooters in the class of '22, '23, and '24.
 
#433      

djkirkpatrick22

djkirkpatrick22
djkirkpatrick22
My thought process is this… Can Certa even help us if he’s on the bench? If his only strong asset is shooting from deep, is mediocre from everywhere else even, on D, when will he even see the floor? We can say Jr year, but we have to consider that he’d be long gone before then…
 
#434      

Point-Illinois

P
Point-Illinois
At what point do we start recruiting the “freshman at a different school who entered the transfer portal” recruit in conjunction with (or as opposed to) the “coming direct from high school” recruit.

I remember Brad once saying he’s worried about the ease of the first transfer because he’ll recruit guys, they may not see a lot of time or have trouble adjusting to the college game, they leave, and then the light turns on elsewhere.

That time, energy, emotion, and development to get someone in the right frame of mind/body to be a contributor as a sophomore or Junior all gone…and someone else reaps the benefits. (In some cases, sometimes guys simply don’t have it…not every light will illuminate)

If we recruit young portalers that showed promise as a freshman (or ones where we showed interest while they were in high school but they didn’t play much at their first school) we get to take advantage of them getting their “New level of basketball” frustrations out and have more stability as they would have already used up their free transfer to come to us.

TL;DR - Recruiting transfer portal freshman might be just as beneficial as recruiting high schoolers now that we are a couple years into the free transfer rule.
 
#436      

Illini in Indiana

I
Indiana
Illini in Indiana
We need another PG and another shooter.

We have a true shooter, but he didn't get to play much. Maybe we'll run stuff for him in the tourney
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#438      

Jimbo

J
Jimbo
DJM said:
since we got little of substance to talk about for a few days, I'm going to throw this out and I hope it hasn't already been discussed. Any chance Coleman comes back? Sounds crazy but I've seen him on the mock drafts anywhere from 35ish to 40's. I think Ayo was similar his sophomore year (I think they are similar in age) and stuck around for the bump in signing bonus. Lot goes into this decision but how much estimated signing bonus would he pass up this year, minus NIL money, to role the dice to move up to 1st round? (Which could be attainable with improved 3 point shooting, etc.) I think a pretty good boost. Let's also throw in, and again, just for sh*ts and grins, he did not partake in senior day festivities and the team would be built around him. I know, I know, means nothing but what else we got to talk about for a few days?
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I’m been hopeful that he returns, and perhaps I’m reading too much into him not taking part in senior day. The jump from a 2nd rounder to a first rounder would be huge financially. That would really help us next year.
 
#439      

rtbritt

rtbritt
rtbritt
Jimbo said:
I’m been hopeful that he returns, and perhaps I’m reading too much into him not taking part in senior day. The jump from a 2nd rounder to a first rounder would be huge financially. That would really help us next year.
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I think juniors taking part in senior day needs to be an extremely rare occassion saved for guys that could have easily left the year before after declaring and then returning, and then are definitely declaring again, thus they definitely will not be back.
 
#441      

BashCtIllini

BashCtIllini
BashCtIllini
rtbritt said:
I think juniors taking part in senior day needs to be an extremely rare occassion saved for guys that could have easily left the year before after declaring and then returning, and then are definitely declaring again, thus they definitely will not be back.
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I don't think Jrs should ever take part in Sr Day under any conditions. You leave early, you forfeit that honor. The whole point of Sr Day is honoring guys that put in 4/5 years to the program starter, legend, role player, or walkon. It's not just a day to honor great players.
 
#442      

Thaillini22

Thaillini22
Thaillini22
NarrowJ said:
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.
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I doubt "most" kids rated top 40-50 have "crazy handlers/inner circle or # of high schools" (rumoured or real).
 
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