Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

[Chuck Nuggets]

Taking UCLA a bit more serious right now

People can say what they want about Mick Cronin, but the dude can coach and he's insanely competitive. He will not go gentle into that good night. And I assume they have plenty of cash to throw around.

 

[altgeld88]

You mean fans saying a team going into the tournament as a 3 seed “was dead in the water and the reality of the business is underwood should be on the hot seat” was asinine?

Good thing we have an AD

I believe one entry around the time of the second Wisconsining made the analogy of BU to a sales professional chronically failing to close who would be put on a performance improvement plan if not outright canned.

I mean, don't get me wrong, from time to time even in the off-season rage overtakes me when I think about the lack of clever inbounding plays. That gem to Mirk underneath our basket at Maryland in the final minutes was all well and good but I'm still not sold.

 

[RabidDawgClassic]

 

[Zorak]

Anyone else have a better claim than us?

I don't know how you could possibly say UCLA or Louisville has a better one, and Duke didn't make the Final Four.

 

[lstewart53x3]

Hmm, what are we defining as the "portal era"?

On the podcast with Werner, I think he mentioned we’d be 3rd out of 16 teams. So 4 years.

 

[kmunt09]

Something tells me ticket sales at SFC next year are not going to be cheap.

Go Illini!

 

[DICKnaggie]

Louisville would seem like a strange choice except for the money. Why would you want to go to a team that is almost totally new, has no chemistry with a coach who has proven nothing over Illinois, which is opposite in every way?

 

[skyIdub]

People can say what they want about Mick Cronin, but the dude can coach and he's insanely competitive. He will not go gentle into that good night. And I assume they have plenty of cash to throw around.

Ok! He's a d!ck.

 

[foby]

AMFS Day.

 

[Altuve27]

The Andrej news obviously excites me. It felt to me like towards the end of last season Stojakovic really started to understand or buy in to or however you want to phrase it what Brad wanted and expected from him.

Defend at a high level consistently.
Rebound and chase balls with more aggression.
There’s more, but I don’t want this post to turn into “War and Peace”

Year 2 for transfers there is usually a pretty sizable jump. We saw it big time with Terrence. Both Ben and Jake improved from year one to year 2.

I expect the same with Andrej. The shooting is low hanging fruit, but what I want to see Andrej REALLY focus on along with that is his passing. Those assist numbers need to climb. Keep your head up on drives, see the floor, and if the drive isn’t there make that extra pass to one of your talented teammates.

I expect Andrej to have a big year. Couldn’t lose him, in my opinion, and we didn’t. It’s a good day.

 

[altgeld88]

I see what you did there. Full marks.

 

[ChiefGritty]

You mean fans saying a team going into the tournament as a 3 seed “was dead in the water and the reality of the business is underwood should be on the hot seat” was asinine?

Good thing we have an AD

As someone who definitely said this team would fold under pressure in the tournament (not that it ever remotely shook my faith in BU, which is dumb), on one level I was just wrong, on another level you could say that we just happened to not really face the kind of game that we'd failed at in the regular season (not even UConn really), but the third thing is that Andrej and Mirk kinda grew in emphasis on the tourney run and added a different sort of attitude to the team.

Not to in any way denigrate Wagler's performance, but a team takes on the personality of its best player, and while HE excels at being an emotionless cool as a cucumber assassin, the way that bled into the rest of the team may not have always brought the best out of them.

This isn't a physical fistfight team and that won't change, we're a skill team. But it's going to be a bit fierier group next year, and I think that can help us if we manage it correctly.

There's my post-hoc rationalization for being all-in hyped on a core I gave up on a month ago. It was never really about the Euros, the acquisition of which is the smartest thing that's been done in college basketball in the 2020's.

 

[Illini_Jack]

Come on Peja. Join us. You would look great in orange.

 

[frozenrope9190]

It wasn't that long ago that I was listening to Illinois Northwestern in a first day OT Big 10 tourney matchup and begging them to just beat NU so I can say they made it to the second day before their season ended..

We've come a long way, baby.

 

[Illini in Italy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2045185199185506815

 

[Illini2010-11]

People can say what they want about Mick Cronin, but the dude can coach and he's insanely competitive. He will not go gentle into that good night. And I assume they have plenty of cash to throw around.

Outside of money (and being near the ocean), I can't understand why anyone would want to play at UCLA. What big time player would want to play home games at a stadium where the team averages around 5,000 in attendance (roughly 40% of capacity)?

 

[Chuck Nuggets]

Ok! He's a d!ck.

 

[PizzaHutParkingLot]

People can say what they want about Mick Cronin, but the dude can coach and he's insanely competitive. He will not go gentle into that good night. And I assume they have plenty of cash to throw around.

Ok! He's a d!ck.

Did you just raise your voice at me?

 

[Illini4Chief]

Approaching 60 yrs of Illini BB for me. Fondly recall early names like Dave Scholz, Randy Crews, Denny Pace, Greg Jackson, Rick Howett, Les Busboom, Mike Price, Jim Dedecker, “Spoon”, Nick Conner, etc, etc. Loved them all, and all since…and still praying for that NC run!!

I invoke the sacred name of the great....(drum roll)

Govoner Vaughn​

 

[Greensboro]

This is 100% correct - met him he asked me how long I had been a fan and was very nice, guys like him really want to be left alone. He is super cool, but he will not be a fan boy. I do think he loves how rabid our fan base is.

We were across the aisle & up a couple rows in Greenville. couldn't hear what he said when the Duke fan wanted a Selfie with him; but it was roughly eff-off, leave me alone, there is a basketball game going on & I'm trying to watch. Plus Duke sucks.

 

[Chuck Nuggets]

Outside of money (and being near the ocean), I can't understand why anyone would want to play at UCLA. What big time player would want to play home games at a stadium where the team averages around 5,000 in attendance (roughly 40% of capacity)?

I mean, yeah, besides that.

 

[Zorak]

There's my post-hoc rationalization for being all-in hyped on a core I gave up on a month ago.

It really is crazy how fast we've gone from "these guys can't even beat Wisconsin" to "COME WIN A NATTY HERE JOHN BLACKWELL"

 

[Flyin' Illini]

However they pulled this off, tons of credit to Brad, his staff, and the entire athletic department... and obviously the donors as well. After years of what felt like a complete roster turnover from year to year, I never saw this level of retention coming.

 

[ColSLU69]

Let's assume that Blackwell signs with Illinois. Who will our top 4 guards be? Blackwell, Vaaks, Coleman... and Morillo? Or Lee? That would be an excellent group!

Now, let's assume that Blackwell does not sign with the Illini. And let's assume that another player, say Brandon Lee, enters the portal. What if the Illini then signed both G Paul McNeil Jr (NC State) and G Terrence Hill Jr (VCU)? Our top 4 guards would be Vaaks, McNeil, Hill, and Coleman. Again, those would be excellent guards!

Could Illinois sign both McNeil and Hill for the same amount of money that it would have taken to sign Blackwell alone? Don't get me wrong. I really want the Illini to add John Blackwell to the roster!! He seems like the perfect fit. The icing on the cake. I'm just pondering what could be possible IF Blackwell goes elsewhere.

 

[FrankNitty30]

Something most Illini fans never thought they would ever hear. Sleeping giant is fully awake!

Sooooo…… toward the beginning of Whitman’s tenure there was a video that was panning through memorial stadium and interspersing Illini football clips, etc. What I remember, perhaps faulty memory, was Whitman saying, “University of Illinois football has been called a sleeping giant. Well, it’s time to wake the giant.”

Am I making this video up? Who can super sleuth this out for me?