Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#1,652      
alexander58
IlliniJeevs said:
So let me get timeline straight:
- Morez commits to Illinois in 8th grade
- As a freshman, he plays quality minutes off the bench, increasing more and more as the season goes on (Similar to our highest rated recruit in program history)
-End of the season clearly shows a priority in usage and trust in Morez from the Illinois staff
-We gave him a competitive NIL offer that he essentially agreed upon and his role would be increased from this year
-His dad convinces him to leave Illinois bc he can be an NBA player at another program + make more money
-Enters portal

I’m struggling to see here what the staff could have done to change this? Sure, playing Ben over him was a mistake in hindsight but nothing at the end of the season indicated it would happen again. NIL wasn’t the issue because he agreed to the NIL deal and I’m sure Illinois wouldn’t have minded paying him ~1 million.

Is the expectation then to pay TA absurd amounts of money to keep him? Let Morez play on the perimeter similar to Ivisic? Change the entire identity of the team to play through him so he can go to the NBA?

None of this points to being an everyday guy and frankly just sounds like his inner circle gave him bad info (Adam miller and Epps).
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cameron crowe GIF
 
#1,657      
illini011923
If this is due to Brad playing Ben over Morez most of this season then yes I agree this is partly on Brad, but Brad has also put this program in the best shape since the early 2000s.

Since 2009-10 season, Illinois has only been to 7 NCAA tournaments (5 under Brad)(6 if you count COVID year)
Since 2009-10 the highest seed Illinois has been have been a 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 9 (Brad led us to 1, 3, 4, and 6)
1 of 4 schools with 20+ wins each of the past 6 seasons (Gonzaga, SDSU, Houston) Only school in a power 5 for all 6 of those seasons
Only Big Ten school in the past 6 seasons to have a winning record each year

This year was rocky and not what we all hoped but I am going to lean towards trusting Brad since he's doing something right if he's having all this turnover and still succeeding each year. Things need to change but that doesn't instantly mean Brad has to go. This has been one of his best traits is being able to adjust and win in the portal.
 
#1,658      
Bucktown
zoiks said:
The situation with players being yearly nomads that can bail on a team at any time is 100% created by the NCAA’s never-ending greed and hope that they can get Congress to grant them an antitrust exemption, so the NCAA can go back to not needing to pay players above the table. The NCAA clings to hope that it can go back to not paying college football and basketball players anywhere near their true market value, so this is the situation fans get. The NCAA and schools could start signing players to binding contracts tomorrow if they wanted, but that would mean the NCAA would be abandoning its delusional quest for an antitrust exemption. The useless, overpaid NCAA admins will not give up the antitrust exemption hope since the moment they do so, a lot of those useless admins will be out of jobs.
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This not the NCAA’s fault. A bunch of random judges have nibbled away at the NCAA’s ability to have rules about eligibility of student athletes.
 
#1,660      
IlliniJeevs
RockfordIllini said:
My turn to vent:

1. I agree with everyone that player movement is out of control and ruining the sport. Guessing NCAA doesn’t really care as long as the tourney remains a cash cow. However, if we continue to have mostly upset free tourneys like this year I will be curious what interest and ratings look like going forward.

2. I love Brad, but I think we’ve peaked under him and it’s due to nepotism. You look at the players we brought in and the players like Dix and Sanfort that we are targeting in the portal, it’s pretty clear we are going all in on spacing/analytics and this looks to be Tyler’s doing. But basketball is played on both ends of the court. The teams that make runs are strong both offensively and defensively. Tyler may be good for his age but good for his age does not mean he’s qualified to steer the ship of a top tier BIG program. If we keep building the team to be Tyler’s play thing I believe we will fall back to being a second tier BIG program.

3. Regardless of what system you want to run, if you can’t find a way to incorporate Morez into what you’re doing you’re not a very good coach. Reminds me of when the Bears hired Mike Martz and he immediately traded Greg Olsen because he can’t use non-blocking tight ends in his system. You have a player like Olsen or a player like Morez you figure out how to use them.

4. On Morez vs Ben: Nevermind their per 40s, but Ben we only got one year plus a potential bonus year for at best a complementary player who provides shooting and spacing. Morez may be the platonic ideal of a college basketball player at this point in that he is dominant at what he does but hes a little undersized and has some skill limitations that means he will likely stay in college at least 3, probably 4 years. You have to keep a guy like that around, particularly a guy who’s been committed to you since he was a frosh in high school. If you prefer Ben to Morez, I think you’re an idiot. I don’t care what system you’re running or what the computers say. We keep preaching every day guys but keep running them off.

Alright, rant over.
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But the issue was never Ben vs Morez. By the end of the season Morez was getting essentially starter minutes and Ben was benched to sub 20. Rumors for Ben’s NIL are less than 1/3 of what Morez was getting for the upcoming year. Clearly Brad wanted Morez in his system or he wouldn’t have even extended the NIL offer that they agreed upon last week. The role he was promised was at minimum the one he got this year by the end (which was extremely high for a freshman). Is being an Everyday Guy making more demands than this and portalling if they aren’t met?
 
#1,662      
Heisenbobble
Maybe "better shape" is more apt here. One Elite 8 and no other 2nd-weekend games in eight years isn't exactly amazing.
 
#1,663      
Class_of_2020
Think we should all stop glorifying Brad for past performance. He’s made ONE meaningful run. The program seems to be on a pretty devastating trajectory at the moment. He should be blamed
 
#1,665      
TampaToo
Especially when they committed before their stones even dropped.
 
#1,666      
nyc_illini
tambo said:
I think with each gut-wrenching transfer, in this new NIL era, I further convince myself that there isn't loyalty in any aspect of college basketball anymore.

I would trade 10 years of Brad and Son's experiment for 3 more years of Morez Johnson Jr and players like him!

In my uneducated eyes, Morez is worth 2 million and Brad and son are worth 500,000.

If this new NIL era brings anything into perspective, I hope it's that coaches salaries like Brad and Son's are too much.

Let's hire a badass D3 coaching staff and spend the money on PLAYERS!
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you are not wrong about that
 
#1,667      
IlliniJeevs
Everyone crying about this, but the last three freshman who were given a massive role their freshman year and still decided to transfer out all flamed out (Miller, Epps, Clark). Just because he was committed to us since middle school doesn’t mean he’s an everyday guy…
 
#1,669      
ChiTown
DB11Headband said:
This is what happens when you play Ben Humrichous over a talent that is going to be All-Conference Floor/All-American ceiling good by the time his college career is over.

This is avoided if he plays as much as he deserved from Day 1, not halfway thru the year.

In this day and age, it's all about managing the egos of players, and FAR more importantly, their respective inner circles.

Hate to be blunt, but this was 100% avoidable. And our staff continues to fumble these situations. Mind-boggling and beyond frustrating.
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I think you wrote this on my board a little while ago……
 

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#1,670      
steveinspringfield
"They have a plan and things will be fine."

How many freaking times did we hear that this year? Might as well just say, "we'll learn from this" the good old standby comment for EVERY bad loss we had this season. Things never were fine, and we never learned a thing to get better by season's end.

And now we're told "they have a plan."

Wonderful.

The only thing correct about the comment from LvilleILL1 above is that Brad ISN'T on the hot seat.
He should be.
 
#1,672      
azillini1
illini0440 said:
I think Tomi stays. But it’s up to donors at this point
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So we need 2 bigs next year even if Tomi stays. Will it ever stop? Really wish we had 3 or 4 players coming back that positively contributed to our success and consistency
 
#1,673      
jamie13197
IMO Josh needs to close door and tell Brad send Tyler and Hamer to WIU or some other school. Hire better assistance. Nepotism is a death nail in many careers and teams. What he did to Chester and Tim, I still have not forgotten. Players that aren't next level have every right to get paid while basketball is their chosen field. We love name on Jersey. Not many players do, any longer. It's gonna ruin college athletics.
 
#1,675      
McGuppin
Chief Stooge said:
Can someone explain how Purdue manages to retain all of their rotation players year over year, while we struggle to keep ANY of our contributors?
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Even though your question is likely rhetorical, I can explain: Kids at Purdue seem to genuinely like playing for Matt Painter. It sure isn't because they have a "Bigger NIL Bag" than we do.
 
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