Who in the world has WI brought in?! #1 in B10 and Nationally!? Also, WI carries that weight yet it's a picture of Michigan/Dusty May. I hate Michigan so much lol.
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
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And herein lies the reason that making long-term decisions (hiring or firing) based on tourney success vs. conference/ season success is such a crap shoot.
Just to add more 'times are a changin' commentary to the recruiting thread, I recently saw a social media post along the lines of:
Jakobi Gillespie is getting 3M from Tennessee to play a 35ish game season
Collin Gillespie starts for the Phoenix suns who play an 82 game schedule and he will make about 20% of that (560k)
Jakobi Gillespie is getting 3M from Tennessee to play a 35ish game season
Collin Gillespie starts for the Phoenix suns who play an 82 game schedule and he will make about 20% of that (560k)
Clickbait works? Here we are talking about it.
Being patient is not a strength of message boards. Long way to go on next seasons rosters.
Even so I doubt we get out of the bottom half.
After watching that game, I'd still take Duke on a 7-game series in a heartbeat. Duke looked like the better team for most of the game. They succumbed to game pressure by a much more experienced team. A whole lot of stuff had to go right for Houston in the last 5 minutes to edge out that win. It did but represents is a singular data point. I wouldn't really consider it in my team building philosophy.
For a number of reasons... Collin has started 8 games (The Suns are 0-8 in those games) and only appeared in 31.Just to add more 'times are a changin' commentary to the recruiting thread, I recently saw a social media post along the lines of:
Jakobi Gillespie is getting 3M from Tennessee to play a 35ish game season
Collin Gillespie starts for the Phoenix suns who play an 82 game schedule and he will make about 20% of that (560k)
He has exhausted all of his college eligibility, so he no longer has the same options for places to play as JaKobi. Scarcity is helping JaKobi. There aren't many guards as good as he is that can still play NCAA. There are dozens of guys around the same skill level as Collin who would kill to take his spot.
why? most of these guys will now make more money in college than they will in the pros. There's a reason we're getting european pros to come play for us, and it isn't love of Illinois. Average salary in the best league in Europe is under $1 m, and we've got Josh Dix out here, who couldn't make one of their rosters getting $2 m. Something isn't right.
If my kid was a P5 player, I'd recommend him to stay in one place, if the money was similar. No need to leave to go from $1 m to $1.2. But if someone is going to throw crazy money at you, that opportunity isn't going to come around very often, take it.
We also tend to see 2 types of kids, the ones looking for every penny that bounce from school to school and the ones using the opportunity to get back closer to home.
The point I was making is that a guy is getting paid 6x more to play college basketball as opposed to the most popular professional league in the world
Why would the reason Collin gets paid less be because he's only started 8 games? Collin gets paid the same amount whether he plays 31 games (he's played 31; not 8) or in all 82 games
Unsure what you're getting at here?
If he was being offered $3M, his father would have changed his tune.
I couldn't care less of who's at 1 or 2. I'd like to get off of the #18 spot. Can't disagree with the assessment....to date.
Big Z doesn't seem to be very highly thought of by any publications. Literally, not one. Wondering why?
247 has him at #35 in their transfer portal rankings. They have him higher than Tre White (#68).
I think he was answering your question. Supply and demand. There are fewer players with college eligibility that have his skills. Therefore the price goes up.
This is not true…Big Z ranked 35th on the 247 transfer portal rankings.
He is ahead of multiple other B1G 10 commits.
Aday Mara - Michigan
Elliot Cadeau - Michigan
Reed Bailey - Indiana
Nick Boyd - Wisconsin
Kaleb Glenn - Michigan State
2025 College Basketball Transfer Portal Top Prospects
2025 College basketball Transfer Portal Top Prospects
247sports.com
That was a fluke win, Duke had that game in hand
This is not true…Big Z ranked 35th on the 247 transfer portal rankings.
He is ahead of multiple other B1G 10 commits.
Aday Mara - Michigan
Elliot Cadeau - Michigan
Reed Bailey - Indiana
Nick Boyd - Wisconsin
Kaleb Glenn - Michigan State
2025 College Basketball Transfer Portal Top Prospects
2025 College basketball Transfer Portal Top Prospects
Yeah, Big Z is on every '26 mock draft I've seen
Illwinsagain
- Cary, IL
Does this rating include losses? That is the only way I could justify their rating.This is not true…Big Z ranked 35th on the 247 transfer portal rankings.
He is ahead of multiple other B1G 10 commits.
Aday Mara - Michigan
Elliot Cadeau - Michigan
Reed Bailey - Indiana
Nick Boyd - Wisconsin
Kaleb Glenn - Michigan State
2025 College Basketball Transfer Portal Top Prospects
2025 College basketball Transfer Portal Top Prospects
I’m writing here today on what seems like another slow news day of disputing whether or not now is the time to panic about the Illini’s basketball season or college basketball on the whole being ruined with an idea – I’ll preface this proposal with the more I think about it, the more I feel like the kid that raises his hand right before class ends and asks about the homework that is due today which the teacher forgot to mention, but hear me out here:
While temporarily escaping into sports fandom today, like many others on this board do midday on a Friday, I was reading KenPom’s latest blog post. This post was about the results of the H.U.M.A.N poll, which KP polls users to establish preseason rankings picked purely by fans, by giving users the option to pick 50 head-to-head matchups for who is going to be the higher-ranked team by the end of the year. From this, a preseason list is established. It’s essentially a thought experiment and doesn’t feed into data on his actual algorithm.
In his blog post, he posted a statement from this year’s best picker (Champion Ball-Knower of the Year), who is a UCONN fan (you can read the full post with the statement here). The thing that caught my eye is the guy mentioned “I'm a contributing writer to Storrs Central, a media website that spun off of the Bleeding Blue For Good NIL collective. 100% of subscription profit from the site pays NIL deals to UConn athletes (staff is paid by website sponsors/ads).”
I know the Storrs Central isn’t a message board, but this caught my eye because I tried to look at Duke’s equivalent of Illinois Loyalty yesterday and realized that you have to pay to use their site. It got me thinking that what if this board implemented a membership fee to view/contribute where proceeds went NIL pot? If other major programs have enough of a following, don’t we? I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but Illinois is the 4th most tracked team on KenPom out of 365 D-1 schools, so there is clearly a pretty large fan base both using this site and other sites like KenPom.
Just food for thought, but if @Dan decided to implement a paywall for this site where the subscription fees went to pay for the betterment of our programs, I would not complain about this. Maybe a hot take but if we’re a championship caliber message board then maybe we should pay like one.
I know I have a tendency to be a bit of a KenPom glazer on here but a blog he wrote earlier this week about the (positive) effects of NIL and the transfer portal on college basketball provided some good thoughts on arguments had on here every day, so is definitely worth a read: NIL and the transfer portal has made college hoops better than ever.
While temporarily escaping into sports fandom today, like many others on this board do midday on a Friday, I was reading KenPom’s latest blog post. This post was about the results of the H.U.M.A.N poll, which KP polls users to establish preseason rankings picked purely by fans, by giving users the option to pick 50 head-to-head matchups for who is going to be the higher-ranked team by the end of the year. From this, a preseason list is established. It’s essentially a thought experiment and doesn’t feed into data on his actual algorithm.
In his blog post, he posted a statement from this year’s best picker (Champion Ball-Knower of the Year), who is a UCONN fan (you can read the full post with the statement here). The thing that caught my eye is the guy mentioned “I'm a contributing writer to Storrs Central, a media website that spun off of the Bleeding Blue For Good NIL collective. 100% of subscription profit from the site pays NIL deals to UConn athletes (staff is paid by website sponsors/ads).”
I know the Storrs Central isn’t a message board, but this caught my eye because I tried to look at Duke’s equivalent of Illinois Loyalty yesterday and realized that you have to pay to use their site. It got me thinking that what if this board implemented a membership fee to view/contribute where proceeds went NIL pot? If other major programs have enough of a following, don’t we? I mentioned this a few weeks ago, but Illinois is the 4th most tracked team on KenPom out of 365 D-1 schools, so there is clearly a pretty large fan base both using this site and other sites like KenPom.
Just food for thought, but if @Dan decided to implement a paywall for this site where the subscription fees went to pay for the betterment of our programs, I would not complain about this. Maybe a hot take but if we’re a championship caliber message board then maybe we should pay like one.
I know I have a tendency to be a bit of a KenPom glazer on here but a blog he wrote earlier this week about the (positive) effects of NIL and the transfer portal on college basketball provided some good thoughts on arguments had on here every day, so is definitely worth a read: NIL and the transfer portal has made college hoops better than ever.
Here is some perspective on the cost of guys from the field of 68.
Top 10 Player - 3M to 4M
All League - 1.5M to 2.5M
Starter on P4 - 500,000 to 1.5M
Bench on P4 - 250,000 to 500,000
Top 10 Player - 3M to 4M
All League - 1.5M to 2.5M
Starter on P4 - 500,000 to 1.5M
Bench on P4 - 250,000 to 500,000
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I didn't see that! How the heck are we 18? Northwestern has been more impressive? Absolutely not.
No, it's just that other teams have signed more transfers than us. We only have Big Z. 247 has our transfer class at #55, and of all the teams ahead of us, only 3 have just 1 transfer like we do, and their transfer happens to be ranked higher than Big Z.
and what makes no sense is there is 0 ROI. This is just rich people who love college sports saying I want to see my team win.
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My point is that Collin is a replacement level player in the NBA. He is starting because of injuries to teammates. He is not a starting level player, which the meme asserts, which would provide a MUCH bigger salary than JaKobi's. His play as a starter has done nothing to show he deserves that role in the future.
While JaKobi is probably not as good at basketball as Collin, he has a market for his services that Collin no longer has. JaKobi is a very good college basketball player, his value in that league (impact on winning games) is much greater in that context than Collin's is in his.
NCAA sports don't make sense in free market terms for a lot of reasons. It's just not an apples-to-apples comparison.
Forgive me if this seems like an argument for arguments sake... It's been a slow week here.
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