Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
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First!! Let’s gooo
I love Terrence Shannon Jr
I love Terrence Shannon Jr
Can we start storing up money for year 1 NIL for Morez?
A ray of hope that Brad and staff have a reason other than desperation to sign Jeremiah Williams. From Twitter via the Illinois Loyalty Home page.
With the caveat that the clip is from before his Achilles injury. Is he recovered from the injury? And, since the NCAA will be involved now, many rivers to cross before we know if/when he plays in a B1G game. BUT, if the stars align, Williams looks like Sencire Harris - both in terms of his size, aggressive defensive posture, and middling offense. From my non-insider position, PG looks like a committee. Gibbs-Lawhorn and/or Moretti might work into the rotation - Epps broke the freshman glass ceiling. Hawkins and Rodgers can mix in as point forward. TSJ can drive and dish (or get fouled). Harris 1.0 has certainly spent the off-season working his butt off. We shall see who wants to seize the opportunity.
With the caveat that the clip is from before his Achilles injury. Is he recovered from the injury? And, since the NCAA will be involved now, many rivers to cross before we know if/when he plays in a B1G game. BUT, if the stars align, Williams looks like Sencire Harris - both in terms of his size, aggressive defensive posture, and middling offense. From my non-insider position, PG looks like a committee. Gibbs-Lawhorn and/or Moretti might work into the rotation - Epps broke the freshman glass ceiling. Hawkins and Rodgers can mix in as point forward. TSJ can drive and dish (or get fouled). Harris 1.0 has certainly spent the off-season working his butt off. We shall see who wants to seize the opportunity.
Good vibes today ladies and gentlemen
Maybe todays topic can be positive and we all just talk about how much we love TJ
Nah! From what I can tell we have too many former college and professional coaches on here who know more than our staff. We’d be in a bad spot if they didn’t share their insights on here.
texillwek
🔶🔹🔸🔷
It's a beautiful weekend everywhere but the flyover states. Maybe everybody can go outside and play?
Not to mention a few $25 boosters who demand to know how their money’s being spent!
I love it. Defense is 90% effort and 10% athleticism. Pair him with Sencire and the other team will have trouble bringing the ball past half court. It used to drive me crazy how the Bobby Knight IU teams would push our offense to the top of the key ruining our angle for entry passes to the post.
Teams shredded our defense last year. We could not defend the three or stop penetration against Penn State 93 pts 79 pts , Iowa 81 pts , Indiana 80 pts , and NW 73 pts.
Well said
It would be really weird to have a forum and not have people share their opinions. My Dad was a Hall of Fame HS basketball coach...they understand that questioning/criticism comes with the territory. I think they'll be ok.
Sincere is really going to have to work hard this summer to get minutes this year. Was significant offensive liability and not a great ball handler or decision maker. Great effort, but spot minute energy guy until he can improve those.
What the hell happened at St Rita last year? That team had 3 top 100 2024 recruits in Johnson, James Brown, and Nojus(possibly the 3 best juniors in the state depending on you value Koch vs Nojus) plus a top 100 2025 recruit in Melvin Ball.
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Harris is a freakishly good athlete. He looked like the fastest guy on the floor at times which is saying something because Shannon was also on the floor.
However, he just did not look very skilled offensively both shooting the ball or dribbling. He also only managed to shoot 20% percent from the free throw line which is almost difficult to fathom that a d1 player could shoot that poorly from the line.
He's got a long long way to go on the offensive end but he's so special defensively that he only has to get to decent to be an impact player and if he can become a good shooter and decent ball handler he's going to end up playing in the NBA as a Patrick Beverley type.
It's possible. Could be a helluva player.
At least what he needs to work on has a smaller scope of focus for an off season so I'm hopeful that he can develop into a serviceable shooter eventually. Kudos to Brad finding players that can have an immediate impact in some sort of way with the freshmen he had last year. Last year was disappointing given what could have been, but we wouldn't have even sniffed the tournament without the freshmen. If DGL or Hansberry can find similar ways of impacting the game in their first year, we could be so freaking good.
There will always be players, even highly rated ones. To me, this is the thing with Brad...he's always said that he only wants guys that want be Illini. It seems pretty clear that the last two years he has gotten away from that. Ayo to Skyy is a great example. This allowing himself (and the program) to be so publicly used for monetary gain was Groce-esk in it's perceived desperation. Go back to recruiting guys who play for the name on the front, not the one on the back! We need team play...we could watch the NBA by changing the channel.
Per 247 (which isn't perfect but can be used as a proxy), Skyy Clark was the 3rd highest rated Illini recruit ever. Jayden Epps was the 14th. Underwood took a very good risk-- the fact that it didn't work out is just a part of life. I would much rather we take these types of risks than take the kid who doesn't sniff the top 100 recruit list but when he was little he had a signed Michael Finke poster and just loves Illinois.
As for monetary gain, so what? It isn't desperate - it is what we all do! If someone wants to double my compensation, I'm taking the job. Why we expect kids to not be motivated by the same things as adults is mindboggling. Hunter Dickinson left because Michigan has crap NIL. Good for him.
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This was a player that most people didn’t give a chance of getting any time last year to an impact player. Will be very surprised if he isn’t improved and surprising again this year. May not be a shooter but bet he will take it to the hoop and finish. Attitude and athleticism are tough to stop.
They underachieved, that's for sure. Could have really used a point guard to help set things up. They had bigs, shooters, wings, and coaching. Just needed that point to bring it all together. Definitely disappointed and fell short. Lost to Brother Rice on Tuesday or Wednesday and lost to the opportunity to host Kenwood at home on Friday night in the finals. You know its bad when the head coach is an Alum and he goes to another Catholic school in the area.
OnlyOrange
- Belleville, IL
Some insiders on Twitter now hinting that Jeremy Fears may soon be decommitting from MSU?
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