Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

[LvilleILL1]

Keep an eye on a portal power forward that should enter in the coming days.

Big Z/Tomi announcement should be soon.

They are hoping for Sarr plus one more euro.

Looking to add a big money guard/wing in the portal-will have more on who that could be in the coming days.

Two depth pieces in the portal as well.

They are being a bit more tight lipped this year, but targets will start to emerge again.

Great baseline to work with with Kylan, Tomi, Z (should be soon), and Ty. They will get dudes around those guys and next year will be fun. Gotta stay patient, better days ahead.

 

[Second place is 1st loser]

When BU came up short in the portal last year and the sky was falling (who can forget the exhausting whining over Storr?), he shocked everyone with his stellar euro recruits. Plan A, B and C may collapse but Brad will always end up with a strong roster. Be patient and trust.

And going that route, we ended up having the youngest team in college basketball. This is what we were trying to avoid. Our fans did so well this past season when the expected growing pains occurred. We had players getting destroyed and all coaches needed to be fired. Not looking forward to that again.

 

[AirNeazy]

If BumBrickHouse is getting one single dollar of NIL or sniffing more than 7 mpg next year thats a failure of an offseason IMO

 

[Iloveorangekoolaid]

The portal doesn’t work like video game free agency. Don’t expect it to. I’m thrilled to be keeping Bam and Ty. Would love Big Z to commit soon though, even if Tomi declares for draft/remains eligible to return.

 

[Red77sng]

Moms almost always win

His mom has been in and out of the hospital for health reasons

 

[TheDukeUIUC]

Kansas: 7 seed, first round loss
Cal: did not make ncaa tournament
Michigan: 5 seed, sweet sixteen
Indiana: did not make ncaa tournament
DePaul: did not make ncaa tournament
Memphis: 5 seed, first round loss
Marquette: 7 seed, first round loss
Xavier: 11 seed, first round loss to the beloved
Ole Miss: 6 seed, sweet sixteen
Missouri: 6 seed, first round loss

Only two of those portal winners made it out of the first round of the tourney. Three didn’t even make the tournament.

And USC was cleaning up early in the portal season last year and folks here were complaining that Muss was getting it done while Brad only landed Tre and Jake. That worked out really well for them.

 

[the juiceman cometh]

What’s funny is that NCAA players are now getting paid way more than those oversee teenage “pros”.

Should that be surprising or concerning?

NCAA basketball is a much bigger draw, and much bigger revenue generator, than any European basketball league. Even the Euroleague, which very few of these young Euros play in.

 

[zoiks]

Still plenty of time left before all of our hopes for next season ride on signing Ray J Dennis

 

[ptgrd23]

Keep an eye on a portal power forward that should enter in the coming days.
Big Z/Tomi announcement should be soon.
They are hoping for Sarr plus one more euro.
Looking to add a big money guard/wing in the portal-will have more on who that could be in the coming days.
Two depth pieces in the portal as well.
They are being a bit more tight lipped this year, but targets will start to emerge again.
Great baseline to work with with Kylan, Tomi, Z (should be soon), and Ty. They will get dudes around those guys and next year will be fun. Gotta stay patient, better days ahead.

People are getting too excited over a couple of portal misses. Our staff has navigated the portal successfully for all 3 years.

Year 1: TSJ and MM
Year 2: Quincy, Marcus, Justin
Year 3: Ben, Jake, Tre, Kylan plus Europeans KJ and Tomas
Year 4: TBD

 

[Second place is 1st loser]

some fans remind me of my kids when they were toddlers. it's still very early in the game

Can't blame the board on this one. Usually, some of our fans are insufferable when it comes to just about anything. It's Denzel making an appearance with said players pictures beneath, which triggers 50 "likes", refreshes, then the Friday pivot.

It's like promising a kid Friday pizza, then the same night showing up with brussel sprouts, but letting them know that pizza will be coming at some point. . That's a better comp.

 

[DonFlan]

Interesting that Jase Butler who had committed to Illinois last year but went to Washington is now going to Colorado State, the same team Carey Booth has committed too.

 

[Fly Illini Fly!]

Keep an eye on a portal power forward that should enter in the coming days.

Big Z/Tomi announcement should be soon.

They are hoping for Sarr plus one more euro.

Looking to add a big money guard/wing in the portal-will have more on who that could be in the coming days.

Two depth pieces in the portal as well.

They are being a bit more tight lipped this year, but targets will start to emerge again.

Great baseline to work with with Kylan, Tomi, Z (should be soon), and Ty. They will get dudes around those guys and next year will be fun. Gotta stay patient, better days ahead.

Please . That's the must here (IMO).

 

[CoalCity]

Interesting that Jase Butler who had committed to Illinois last year but went to Washington is now going to Colorado State, the same team Carey Booth has committed too.

That team is really gonna be bad

 

[MainelyIllini]

Who is between O and Tyler?

I think that’s OA’s brother Oliver. He’s also a coach I believe.

 

[IllniRook]

The dichotomy on this board is crazier than Britt Lower’s in Severance …

Morez hits the portal, Sky is Falling

Ty stays - OMG the glue is back and Rez sucked anyway.

Tomi may test the waters? We’re lost, fire BU

Oh man, Dix, Sellers. Sarr, and Z? “It’s happening!”

Dix to Creighton - we didn’t want him anyway … but how did we get out bid and why hasn’t anyone committed yet? we’ll be lucky to scratch a team together and prepare for a down year …

Granted, not all posters echoed these sentiments, but it’s the general vibe here.

Please - allow impressional young men to make their decision - regardless of reason. There is no need to slam anyone … they are making what they feel is the best decision - wish them the best. And there is no need to go DEFCON 1 every other minute … This happened last year. Sit back and enjoy the info our insiders provide.

The team will fill out and we’ll all be just as excited next year as this.

 

[Second place is 1st loser]

saving my tantrum for when we don’t get Sarr

Saving mine for when the Ivisic brothers don't sign up. That would be, by FAR, the biggest disaster of the off-season.

 

[Combo]

Don’t be surprised if more than one player declares for NBA draft and enters transfer portal, in order to maximize all options and leverage. It’s only business

I mean ...... why wouldn't they? It's causes fans and coaches a lot of consternation. But from a pure money point of view, it makes sense for a player.

 

[Travis1173]

Some of y’all need a nice tall glass of relaxation and some of y’all just need Dan to suspend your accounts or outright ban you.

 

[AndyKaufmanstutor]

That’s a Dix move. He’ll be playing with his former Iowa teammate and Moline Maroon Owen Freeman.

 

[illiniguy24]

Still plenty of time left before all of our hopes for next season ride on signing Ray J Dennis

I’m tired and don’t feel like looking it up but what ever happened to him this year

 

[Second place is 1st loser]

Bingo! Starting to feel like we are more in that 15-20 range in NIL. Which would be enough to certainly be competitive, but not enough to build a completely loaded top 5 championship roster.

Agree. When people go after BU because he's not getting to the Sweet 16 with the reasoning being we have top 10 resources and he's a top 10 paid head coach....when neither are true, it takes that paddle that's used to beat him down away.

We have decent resources, but they don't allow us that get "elite" transfers. This was the case last year. We relied on Euros(at the time, Demin was the top target and we lost to BYU) and prep players.

This doesn't happen to teams to teams with the resources that we claimed to have had. It's not like we've been losing these guys to blue bloods.

Let's stay positive.

 

[jsmoke2215]

Glad we didn’t get Dix. He went to a lesser conference which is where he belongs. Would’ve been a waste of money. Relieved.

True. Why would you want a guy like Dix who shoots 42-43% from 3, doesn't turn it over, etc. when you could have someone like Sellers or Storr who is high volume, low efficient, and mostly concerned with his pipe dream nba career

 

[azillini1]

Not really sure what thread to put this comment into, but I had recorded the McDonald's High School AA game from earlier this week and just finished watching it. It is really noticeable that this year's attendees are very long and athletic. The kids look as though they are in college already. The disappointing thing is that the typical top schools have these players locked up. I believe Duke has at least 3 of the players including the Boozer twins and they did really well with the freshman they signed last year. Other universities with their usual fair share of the players: UConn, Arkansas, Louisville, Tennessee, Houston, Arizona, etc. BYU also well represented.

The rich get richer.

 

[logjam]

What happened with Sellers?

He didn't want us to be buyers...

 

[BalloonsTheElephant]

I mean, Ben wasn't good on defense, but he shot 34% from three and is a good kid and teammate. I understand you might be frustrated that someone you don't pay used someone else's money to pay a player who underperformed, but why are you attacking him? You sound like a baby.