Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#1      

Dan

Dan
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Welcome to the Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread :illinois:

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IL Returnees
Ty Rodgers
Kylan Boswell
Jake Davis
Tomislav Ivisic

IL Signees
Zvonimir Ivisic
Andrej Stojakovic

New IL Commits
David Mirkovic
Mihailo Petrovic


Unofficial IllinoisLoyalty List of Illinois Basketball Potential Targets by soupy17
B1G Roster Tracker by NarrowJ


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IL players who declared for NBA Draft
Kasparas Jakucionis
Will Riley

April 26: NBA Early Entry Deadline (11:59 p.m. ET)
May 11-18: NBA Draft Combine
June 15: NBA Early Entry Withdrawal Deadline (5 p.m. ET)


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Players who transferred
Morez Johnson to Michigan
Carey Booth to Colorado State
Tre White to Kansas
Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn to UNLV


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2025 IL Recruiting
1) Keaton Wagler (2025 G) committed on September 18th, 2024, signed on November 14th, 2024.
2) Brandon Lee (2025 G) committed on September 25th, 2024, signed on November 19th, 2024.
 
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#2      
SweetLuh
Us Open Tennis Sport GIF by US Open
 
#11      
Illiniam1984
Stanford made a very strong push over the weekend with Stojakovic…they are making things interesting…

UNC had a lot of ground to make up over the weekend so at the moment it appears they are in 3rd…Illinois is still perceived as the leader…but like I said Stanford is most likely the biggest competitor here.

Announcement likely coming today or tomorrow. 😉
 
#18      
altgeld88
On the Stanford-poaching-mad-portal-talent topic: I was at a Virginia Tech basketball game last December in Blacksburg. Snagged last-minute tickets on SeatGeek in a section for donors. Got chatting with one of them adjacent to us about NIL and how VT funneled its bag to football, leaving men's basketball a bit hungry.

They guy said he had gone out to the VT-Stanford game in Palo Alto that fall. He was talking to a Stanford donor at the game who was bragging that given the high net worth of Stanford alums and the new NIL landscape, Stanford would be able to purchase nattys in revenue sports and that few if any programs would be able to compete with them.

I found that vaguely plausible but I've not seen not any evidence that it's afoot. They need money and coaching talent. The former is a necessary but insufficient condition for success. We'll see.
 
#21      
BashCtIllini
altgeld88 said:
On the Stanford-poaching-mad-portal-talent topic: I was at a Virginia Tech basketball game last December in Blacksburg. Snagged last-minute tickets on SeatGeek in a section for donors. Got chatting with one of them adjacent to us about NIL and how VT funneled its bag to football, leaving men's basketball a bit hungry.

They guy said he had gone out to the VT-Stanford game in Palo Alto that fall. He was talking to a Stanford donor at the game who was bragging that given the high net worth of Stanford alums and the new NIL landscape, Stanford would be able to purchase nattys in revenue sports and that few if any programs would be able to compete with them.

I found that vaguely plausible but I've not seen not any evidence that it's afoot. They need money and coaching talent. The former is a necessary but insufficient condition for success. We'll see.
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If the internet is to be believed, Stoyakovic lives about 2 hours from Palo Alto and just under from Berkely.

It is pretty clear that Andrej is interested in education and staying somewhat close to home, given he started at Stanford and then transferred to Cal. Stanford was not good under Haase, but he was able to grab a 5 star here and there. The results at Stanford leading into Andrej's commitment were 14-13, 16-16, 14-19. In 8 seasons at Stanford, Haase won 20 games once and had 0 NCAA Tournament appearances. So while a 5 star recruit had many options, he chose Stanford.

Then when he transferred, again he had many options and chose Cal. The coach of Cal is a Stanford guy Mark Madsen. And Madsen's first year he went 13-19. Prior to that Cal was 14-18, 9-20, 12-20, 3-29. How is 3-29 even possible for a major college team?

So Andrej twice chose California schools, with strong academics, and poor recent history of success. Stanford has a new coach now and he won 21 games in his first season. All of this means I'm more concerned about Stanford than UNC.
 
#22      
altgeld88
BashCtIllini said:
If the internet is to be believed, Stoyakovic lives about 2 hours from Palo Alto and just under from Berkely.

It is pretty clear that Andrej is interested in education and staying somewhat close to home, given he started at Stanford and then transferred to Cal. Stanford was not good under Haase, but he was able to grab a 5 star here and there. The results at Stanford leading into Andrej's commitment were 14-13, 16-16, 14-19. In 8 seasons at Stanford, Haase won 20 games once and had 0 NCAA Tournament appearances. So while a 5 star recruit had many options, he chose Stanford.

Then when he transferred, again he had many options and chose Cal. The coach of Cal is a Stanford guy Mark Madsen. And Madsen's first year he went 13-19. Prior to that Cal was 14-18, 9-20, 12-20, 3-29. How is 3-29 even possible for a major college team?

So Andrej twice chose California schools, with strong academics, and poor recent history of success. Stanford has a new coach now and he won 21 games in his first season. All of this means I'm more concerned about Stanford than UNC.
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Agreed. As for "How is 3-29 even possible for a major college team?"... that is indeed mind-blowing. How demoralizing would showing up for practice daily in February be for those guys?

OTOH, perhaps Cal/Stanford have reached the point of diminishing returns for him (in terms of setting) and it's time to shine at a proven, nationally-visible program with a strong recent track record of placing stars in the League. UNC and Illinois both have very strong academics so perhaps we worry more about UNC than Stanford?
 
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#24      
soupy17
Decent update to the Portal Tracker from over the weekend. Some commitments, some new CB's.

The unofficial Crystal Ball is now up to a solid 89% hit rate - only misses being the late shifts from the Sellers and Dix recruitments.

We're still holding the Andrej CB, but given the information above you can choose to take that as you wish.

Grid is as current as I can go based on the actual information. Mirk unsigned, an estimate of 2 eligibility years for Petrovic, and projecting that Ben and Jason return.
 
#25      
Bbuck21
altgeld88 said:
On the Stanford-poaching-mad-portal-talent topic: I was at a Virginia Tech basketball game last December in Blacksburg. Snagged last-minute tickets on SeatGeek in a section for donors. Got chatting with one of them adjacent to us about NIL and how VT funneled its bag to football, leaving men's basketball a bit hungry.

They guy said he had gone out to the VT-Stanford game in Palo Alto that fall. He was talking to a Stanford donor at the game who was bragging that given the high net worth of Stanford alums and the new NIL landscape, Stanford would be able to purchase nattys in revenue sports and that few if any programs would be able to compete with them.

I found that vaguely plausible but I've not seen not any evidence that it's afoot. They need money and coaching talent. The former is a necessary but insufficient condition for success. We'll see.
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I get the point that Stanford probably has an Alumni base with deep pockets. And the hypothetical is plausible. But, I don't think they have the kind of base that care about their athletics enough. They'd probably put their money into women's volleyball or archery. But, what do I know?
 
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