Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#2,401      
I mean I wouldn’t even pay $1 million for Dix let alone 2 … Sandfort isn’t good enough to play here … He’s essentially Davis but taller … That’s not a shot at Davis we just don’t need more than one of those guys …

Who would I go get if I could pick and knowing what we’ve got NIL wise …

I mean the possibilities are endless but here’s some guys I’d really consider:

Keyshawn Hall … Ryan Conwell … Devin Askew … Dame Sarr … Reed Bailey … Big Z …

Add those 6 to pair with Tomi, Tre, Davis, Bam, Jakstys, Lee, and Wagler …
Yes, we need athletes, not Iowa retreads.

I’m becoming increasingly concerned about Brad’s judgment. And, the top move, firing Hamer, hasn’t happened yet and doesn’t appear to be imminent. Hope I’m wrong on both accounts.
 
#2,402      
I've wasted more hours of my life following basketball recruiting/building the next years Illini roster more than any human should in their life, I loved it.

This is it for me I can't do it anymore I have no idea how these coaches do it. Wake me up when the roster is set.
 
#2,404      
I've wasted more hours of my life following basketball recruiting/building the next years Illini roster more than any human should in their life, I loved it.

This is it for me I can't do it anymore I have no idea how these coaches do it. Wake me up when the roster is set.
See Ya Yes GIF by ABC Network
 
#2,407      
Dix here for a visit … We’re looking to close … Personally - I don’t understand this one … But that’s just me … Talk is it’ll take $2 million for him …

Sandfort in for a visit soon as well … I don’t understand this one either …

Boswell has heard from multiple teams back channeling and offering nearly 7 figures to him …

Tre White has quite a few good offers on the table …

Continue to hear Brad wants Ben back …

If Duke can’t land Nate Ament … They will be all in on Dame Sarr and we could lose him at the last second … I think we’re in a good spot but Duke is going to come after him hard …
So basically we could have no team and start from scratch while others have figured out how to keep their core.

This is brutal
 
#2,408      
Not sure how’d I’d like to be Kylan Boswell, the leader of the team. The kid from Champaign, the kid that locked Dix up. & know he’s gonna get 2 mil & from what I’ve heard that’s over double what Kylan is getting…

Honestly what’re we doing..
seems like Tyler is still in charge of the portal. Dix has Tyler written all over it imo.

If we lose Kylan I’m done with this coaching staff
 
#2,411      
The reality with our coaching staff is that there is an uncomfortable amount red flags piling up. Necessary course Corrections are not being made. Now we may choose to ignore them but to think any real changes are going to be made... The track record seems to point towards unlikely. We can try to put it on NIL circumstances and that to a certain extent is valid. But dang it, things just aren't right anymore.
 
#2,412      
Last year, TSJ, Coleman, Domask, Guerrier, Goode, Harmon all graduated. BU wanted to upgrade/recruit over Sincere, Hansberry (who had back issues) Ty and DGL, so Chester quit and took Hanberry and Sincere with him. We recruited over Ty (with Tre) so he redhirted. Leaving us with DGL. Not sure how BU was to retain a bunch of people from last year's team.
He had the important retention from the prior year - TSJ and Coleman _ and got to the Elite 8.
I am sure JW knows exactly what happened with Morez - and 98% of you on this board do not.
Guarantee that it wasn't because Ben started. Morez was a 5 - he was recruited over with Tomi, who turned out to be a very good player, probably MVP of the team.
The statements from the father just seems like an excuse to take the bigger bag than Illinois was offering. Morez is worth more to other teams than to Illinois, because we focus on a 5 out style. Like Ty or Dain, Morez is just not the right player for that scheme. Maybe he could have been if given the chance - maybe he could shoot 35% from 3 on volume.
Not sure we get Tomi back, but only because he may go to the NBA. That would be three guys to the NBA - and again, how do you retain those guys?
As for everyone complaining that we still have Hamer, and TU, it is still early. JW and BU will be having a lot of conversations. I don't see BU letter a problem fester, if there is a problem. Will leave that up to JW, because he actually knows something about what is really happening - not basing his opinions off of message board hot takes.

Hawk and Goode transferred. Podz, RJ, Clark, Morez, Dain, Epps, Curbelo, Ty (sitting) all left over the last few years because they’re weren’t happy with their minutes or how they were used. Even if we ignore Hansberry and Sincere leaving because of Chet, that’s still a lot of talent leaving that it is a problem we cannot ignore.

Look at how MSU and Purdue is handling the last couple of years. Purdue is taking less heralded recruits retaining them for 3-4 years and helping them improve year over year. MSU had highly ranked recruits like Booker, Fears, and Carr, barely played them as a Freshman and were still able to retain them.

These programs had their players buying into the culture, the system, and player development where the temptation of portal, NIL, and bigger minutes elsewhere is less of a problem.
 
#2,413      
So just to get this straight:

1. Coleman Hawkins got $ 2 million from KSU and this board largely agreed that this was a vast overpay.

2. Morez got backchanneled an offer of around that same amount, and I guess we think he is totally worth it? Is that where we are at?

Observation: this board's valuation of players is wildly inconsistent, and seems to be largely based on other factors such as "BU didn't get us to the S16 so I'm still mad at him."

3. Morez took the better offer. Good on him. But it looks like he is justifying this by trashing the program on the way out. Adam Miller didn't do this. Skyy Clark didn't do this. Majority of the board is OK with this though, apparently.

4. He apparently wants to shoot more 3s and his dad thinks we should have let Kofi, Dain, and Ty shoot more 3s.

Observation: His dad should never be hired as an AC to run our offense. Kofi is in his 3rd season of pro ball and is still not getting the green light to shoot 3s. He is, as far as I can tell from highlights I've seen, playing pretty much the same game he did here. Dain didn't shoot a single 3 at Baylor and attempted one at Memphis, which he missed. I think the staff evaluation was OK there and is likely correct on Rez as well.

I mean, this sucks. No doubt. But I'm not sure what the staff was supposed to do. It looks like Rez was coming back, until he got offered nearly 2 mil. I don't know if we had the opportunity to match, but if we were and declined, I wouldn't fault it. And if he wanted to basically play like Tomi I wouldn't fault our staff for telling him no. I have a hard time believing Rez was secretly a perimeter threat and yet was the only guy on the roster not getting a green light. I'm sure the staff would have loved for him to have that as part of his game, but that it just wasn't there.
Just looked at Morez high school stats and sort of shocked he shot 32% from 3 taking 50 shots his senior year. However, scouting report basically said he lacked offensive ability but a beast down low. I’m pretty confident Illini coaches are good at noticing players’ capabilities and decided Morez was not someone you want jacking up 3’s and certainly not capable of having what it takes to play more on the perimeter. You never know how these huge, physically developed, athletic kids who dominate in high school will respond when they play other kids in college who share the same traits. I think Morez struggled at Illinois but was coming along ok in the role he was assigned. I’ll be shocked if he makes it to the nba - wish we still had him but such is life.
 
#2,414      
Dix here for a visit … We’re looking to close … Personally - I don’t understand this one … But that’s just me … Talk is it’ll take $2 million for him …

Sandfort in for a visit soon as well … I don’t understand this one either …

Boswell has heard from multiple teams back channeling and offering nearly 7 figures to him …

Tre White has quite a few good offers on the table …

Continue to hear Brad wants Ben back …

If Duke can’t land Nate Ament … They will be all in on Dame Sarr and we could lose him at the last second … I think we’re in a good spot but Duke is going to come after him hard …
Well according to Tyler’s analytics, Ben will shoot lights out all next year since he missed almost everything he threw up this season.

We just didn’t let him shoot his way out of his slump yet!!!
 
#2,415      
Sad to say it but this NIL has nuked everything to the point that unless you are paying your starters 1-2M minimum you have no chance to likely even get to the final four yet alone win a natty! Very sad times for college basketball. Unless a universal cap is put in place very soon with every school being required to show NIL financials this will quickly go to 5-10 schools essentially playing for the championship every year. This has to get to a point where the NIL is there for everyone but the deciding factors on where they play are the intangibles like coaching success, training, schedules and NBA past success. We will also see a very large amount of schools move out of Div1 and we will be left with about 100-150 teams for basketball at the D1 level if things don't change.
 
#2,416      
I can’t wrap my head around how we went from we have a core 4 of Tomi, Rez, Bam, tre. And going to bring in Sarr (done deal was said multiple times)…oh and a “blockbuster” lead guard was also said by some people we should “trust” just 2 days ago. To today…every single guy above is maybe leaving or not coming. Rez is gone.. How does this happen and who’s to blame? Boosters, coaches, NIL. All the above?
 
#2,417      
I've cared less about each passing Illini team since the Frazier-DaMonte-Kofi group left, and that continues to another year.

I don't want to watch Josh Dix play Oregon. That is utterly meaningless to me.
This is spot on. They’ve blown up the conferences, rosters turn over every year, late night west coast tip-offs for weeknight games, peacock, B1G+.
 
#2,418      
Hawk and Goode transferred. Podz, RJ, Clark, Morez, Dain, Epps, Curbelo, Ty (sitting) all left over the last few years because they’re weren’t happy with their minutes or how they were used. Even if we ignore Hansberry and Sincere leaving because of Chet, that’s still a lot of talent leaving that it is a problem we cannot ignore.

Look at how MSU and Purdue is handling the last couple of years. Purdue is taking less heralded recruits retaining them for 3-4 years and helping them improve year over year. MSU had highly ranked recruits like Booker, Fears, and Carr, barely played them as a Freshman and were still able to retain them.

These programs had their players buying into the culture, the system, and player development where the temptation of portal, NIL, and bigger minutes elsewhere is less of a problem.
 
#2,419      
Eh, the transfer portal can be a crapshoot. Look at Storr at Kansas, Maddox at Xavier, Tyson at UNC, etc.
Bro bobble ... exactly the mix of incoming freshman and older more experienced transfers is a chemistry experiment...the coaching staff has no way of knowing how the mixture will react.
 
#2,420      
Exactly. This team will be forgotten in 2 years. Most loyal fans can name players from teams going back to when they were teenagers. I won’t care to remember any of these teams one bit.
 
#2,421      
This is just bad from both sides.

On the side of Morez and dad, let’s be real please. All of that is just a smoke screen for you leaving for more money. Period. The. End.
If Morez suddenly start’s shooting 3’s and making them, we can all eat crow, but Kofi? And Dain?? Come on man.

On the staff side, you can’t stop something like this these days, but also you’ve got some serious issues.
Running it back with Hamer and Tyler if even half of the rumors are true is absolute program malpractice.
 
#2,422      
Yes, both sides are at fault. That's the key part, there is blame on our staff.

Even non-insiders can see that the current staff fumbled by playing (and we'll ignore recruiting) Ben Humrichous over Morez for 80% of the year. The staff realized this in late Feb (coincidentally we started playing better).

I mean I don't blame them for the recruitment. If Hum is knocking down 3s at a 40% clip he is worth a spot even if he is a turnstile on defense
 
#2,423      
Lol @ the “I’ll never watch again” or “miss the old days” crowd. Portal era CBB has been great for Illini fans.

Hot take- I love Morez but I don’t want to spend such a significant portion of NIL on a big that can’t shoot.
Fair enough… having a winning team is certainly what it’s all about. But I anlso enjoy watching these kids grow throughout their college careers. Rooting for the player is a huge part of being a fan. Everybody points to Ayo, Trent and Damonte and there’s a reason: we got to know them a little as they grew and became more skilled. We rooted for the people that made up the team and gave the team its identity. What was this team’s identity? Whatever it was will probably be completely different next year. I think it’s just harder to love the team.
 
#2,424      
I think dad's point re: Kofi & Dain isn't that they weren't successful at Illinois... its that they aren't in the league because we didn't have them shooting 18 footers and 3 pointers... but those guys mid-range and threes did not see any uptick after leaving Illinois...

Whole situation sucks
 
#2,425      
Lol @ the “I’ll never watch again” or “miss the old days” crowd. Portal era CBB has been great for Illini fans.

Hot take- I love Morez but I don’t want to spend such a significant portion of NIL on a big that can’t shoot.

That's not a hot take, imo

Morez is more replaceable than Tomi... his ability to pass & shoot are extremely difficult to come by
 
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