Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#426      
The -vic alone makes me excited!
Although I bet he's not athletic enough. LOL
That’s okay - we’re Balkin up

Okay I’ll see myself out
Good Bye GIF by Nickelodeon
 
#428      
If we get Andrej we're pretty much out of playing time.

Petrovic is probably the best player on this team, and certainly a heavy minutes floor general.


Watch the video. Ain't no way he's 6'3"
You're probably getting ahead of yourself with that one - Tomi is going to be a 15+ point scorer next year, Kylan averaged 18 points a game for us in March and if we sign Andrej, he is our best player. But Petrovic is an instant starter next to Kylan and they can share ball handling and pick and roll playmaking and they can both shoot the three, so it's a really nice combo

Petrovic checks a lot of boxes for us in terms of more ballhandling, quickness three point shooting on the perimeter, if we get Andrej I really don't think we need another player, if we do get one, it would be a DGL type role, but I think Lee can essentially do that
 
#440      
With the way the football program likes to space out commitments, does that mean there will be no boom tonight for Andrej? If we let him leave without a commitment, this won’t end well for us.
The pessimist in me tells me this was timed to cover for some bad news? I hope not.
 
#441      
I'm here for all the questions because to understand how and why this is all happening you need to understand landscape and power players in European basketball.

One of them (probably the biggest one) is an agent of all these guys, think NBA Rich Paul but somehow more powerful. Petrovic, Mirkovic, both Ivisic twins are his clients, heck even Peja Stojakovic have connections to him. He also holds one of the biggest talent academies in Europe where he plucks players from that region (Balkans) and some from outside willing to come and work and compete in pro league against grown men while getting opportunity and minutes, something that is very rare for a young player in Europe to get, regardless how talented and good you are - your role will depend on how you produce against those grown men with plenty of things going against you not even counting lack of experience. Most of them just want an opportunity to showcase their game and no disrespect, most of them will come rather to play against guys their age than get bullied by older players and screwed on every 50-50 call against them.

Whats good for Illini is establishing some kind of cooperation with this guy, because he can get things done and fast. I'd look for Underwood to be a guest on annual coaching clinic organized in Serbia soon. Forging more connections with people there also helped Kentucky who got Petrovic's teammate from this season Andrija Jelavic commited (nice stretch PF with ball skills, fluid game and athleticism). Calipari was a guest there and less than a month later Zvonimir Ivisic commited to Kentucky to play for him. People are catching on fast but its good to get there earlier, think euro guys come kinda cheaper than portal players especially considering some money thrown around for players which really didnt showed much going around asking for some crazy $$. Ex-Yugoslavia is popular among them because they likely wont ask much, they've basketball culture on lock most of them are players with good fundamentals and it doesnt hurt thats place where one of the tallest people in Europe live. Average height for men where i live is something more than 6ft (I'm 6'6'' and yet im not even tallest guy in my friend group).

I think we have our first Eastern Euro Loyalty Insider.


In Former Soviet Union, information collects insider.
 
#445      
Are the new balkans going to get held up by NCAA like Tomi and Big Z? Hoping we’ve learned how to go through the process but then again it’s the NCAA.
 
#446      
And even with Domask, his 3pt% did take a dive in the Big Ten (from 35% to 30%). For him, not a huge deal because it wasn't pivotal to his game. Kennard Davis takes more 3s though, and Rodney Rice takes a lot of them. Rice had about the same 3pt% as Davis on higher volume, in a much tougher conference. I think there's just a significantly higher degree of certainty that it will carry over with him than with Davis.
Domask actually did shoot well from 3 after Jan 1st(was like 37%). He just had a pretty rough start to the season.

Such a small season that fairly short hot and cold streaks can drastically impact percentages. I think shooting translates well but the nature of a 30 some game season where guys might only take 120 attempts is that 3 pt percentages can drastically differ year over year.
 
#449      
Petrovic looks like an interesting under the radar pickup, but I have long doubts about him only being 22. Might be like the Boban scene at the beginning of the movie "Hustle".
 
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