Is there any chance we could get back Ty? There’s always a few guys each year that enter and come back.
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
mhuml32
Gesture of Northern Aggression
If we are qualifying Curbelo as the "spark" of the bench in 2022 or the 2023 group of Skyy (quitting mid-season), Harris, and Epps then the combination of either Jake Davis or Drej coming off the bench in 2026 absolutely counts.
Jake Davis is not a guard.
Edit: I see you said “either” Jake or Andrej. The latter probably counts (though he was our second leading scorer; not the typical bench piece).
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CrazedUIFan
UI Fan in QC Land
I like this kid…
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I think our fanbase is awesome and find demands for it to be lobotomized quite strange and unnecessary.
Not to toot my own horn but I think I more or less nailed it calling Vaaks a cross between KJ and Evansville Humrichous. He's just a much bigger and wider human than Wagler despite comparable height/length, he doesn't move in the same way.
I'm struggling to understand why Brandon Lee would leave at the moment he's all of a sudden needed in this way.
There's a missing piece here. Pretty lame to be relentlessly shamed and propagandized for stating the obvious.
One of the charms of this truly great site is the differing opinions that are offered. Some inspire thought (do we need more zone, better BLOB plays or just more cowbell?), some cause heated keyboard debate (reasons we didn't get that guy: $$$, recruiting malpractice, didn't realize until too late that we don't have a backup PG) and others cause me to laugh out loud, which I need to do more often.
Keaton’s influence on the returning players hopefully will be seen - top to bottom.
He wasn’t the fastest, strongest, most athletic by any stretch but his IQ on helping the team win was off the charts.
The leap for Dre will hopefully come on how he approaches the game rather than becoming a lights out shooter.
That said, hopefully the 3 point shooting improves too.
Jake not a guard. I don’t think Andrej is either; but either way, he won’t be coming off the bench THIS year. Point remains that - for this year, we won’t have anyone (real minutes off the bench - guard).
unless we add somebody.
I don’t see exactly see Brown being ready.
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Agree completely w/ the bolded. Andrej is going to want to score a lot and Vaaks will have the ball in his hands a lot. Adding another guy that expects to score 15-20 PPG (like Blackwell) might be disruptive. But adding another big that can rebound and defend and a guard that can handle and defend quick guards makes a lot of sense.
I've seen the tape of Brown and to my relatively untrained eye, I can't see him being ready his first year. Down the road, he may very well be.
Now I'm going to say something that's probably a little out there, but I've been thinking about a lot and have kinda convinced myself of:
Andrej Stojakovic, Lead Guard.
OK, hear me out.
Once we settle into the half court, lead guard in our system is all about running the pick and roll. Stoj didn't really do that much this past season, we used him in a lot of ISOs instead. He's great at finding space and getting to the bucket, which is the primary skill in an ISO, but also helpful as a pick and roll initiator. The primary goal of the pick and roll is actually to get the initiator to the basket. This is the most efficient outcome in pick and rolls. I think #2 is typically initiator shooting from perimeter off the dribble, and #3 is pass out for 3. So if Stoj can work on reading defenses and hitting open shooters, I think he could be a third option to play that lead guard role (not taking the ball up the court so much as switching into the lead guard role at the top of the key in the half court).
He also has every incentive to work on this. I think this is the thing that could unlock his potential as an NBA prospect. I don't know, it's probably just me being crazy, but I've convinced myself at this point that there's something there. Maybe one of you can explain to me why I'm completely off base.
TLDR for today
To the pessimists fighting:
To the optimists fighting:
To the pessimists fighting:
To the optimists fighting:
I have no concerns about offense. Who's going to help Dre on defense. I think our ability to have lateral defenders is being undermined. True we have size but in tight games you have to have two or three guys that can lock down similar to having two or three that can just get a bucket down the stretch.
Once they hit the portal, they are essentially a free agent... though the scholarship continues through the end of the academic year. (until July 1st)
Contrary to popular belief, most athletic scholarships are not guaranteed beyond one year. Until very recently, almost none of them were. As of 2024, multi-year guarantees in the revenue sports have been mandated to some degree, but can always be cancelled by poor academic progress or misconduct.
Once you declare for the portal, you have no recourse to compel the University to honor your scholarship past the current academic year, even if you change your mind. If a guy returns, like say Peyton Sandfort at Nebraska, a new, mutual agreement must be reached.
Who are these two top 30 FR? Coleman is ranked about #30. Next highest is Morillo at around #60.
Typical inflate-ranking on this forum.
His potential and the main thing he need to work on is developing his 3-point shot. Secondary, is not having tunnel vision on his drives.
Kostas
- Naperville, IL
Apparently, Trilly commented that going to have to move everyone down a spot soon. @Indy Illini Fan @illini0440 @LvilleILL1 @DB11Headband @sharpshot16 @FI_890526 Any comment and any (realistic) chance Illinois is in the mix?
My apologies, conflated a video I watched calling him a top 30 talent with top 30 ranking.
Clearly that invalidates the entire post if I say top 60 freshmen.
I think this is legitimate too. I'm sure the #1 negative feedback item from NBA evals is going to be his tendency to keep the ball a second too long when trapped/doubled or driving into a crowd. He needs to add more playmaking ability to his game that isn't just him knifing through for a close range shot.
Illinois should have even more ballhandlers than last season, imo.
All of the negativity has to do with the Blackwell rug pull, but I'm not convinced he was ever a real option anyway unless Andrej was to leave or Coleman decommitted. For all of the hype about Blackwell, 95% of what he adds to a team is scoring (which we will not have any issues doing anyway). He's not a plus defender, he's not a plus passer, he just takes field goal attempts away from other players. He shot 43% overall last season, so its not as if he's uber-efficient in doing it either.
With his about-face from 'wanting to win' to 'wanting usage' I'm gonna have to go ahead and coin the nickname "John Blackhole"
His career assist to turnover is 0.8
The tools are there… but he’s probably got to improve as a decision maker.
In terms of getting to the basket … there’s very few guys more effective in that department (if any). So using the PnR for a downhill drive would obviously make sense.
Yup.
And it’s not totally a 4 million dollar stud scorer like Blackwell. Don’t get me wrong, he would've been FANTASTIC. But that was always the home run shot.
At the moment, it’s not what we absolutely need.
It’s depth at the guard spot.
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ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Vaaks seems like a player who could exploit his skillset in a way that turns up the facilitation and turns down the shot hunting.
Stojakovic does not seem like that. Bucket-getting is the core of what's good about him as a player and the core of what he brings this team as constructed.
My starting 5
Vaaks
Coleman
Andrej
Mirk
Tomi
Bench
BigZ
Jake
Ethan Brown
Morrilo
Jason J
Landon Davis
Zens
Vaaks
Coleman
Andrej
Mirk
Tomi
Bench
BigZ
Jake
Ethan Brown
Morrilo
Jason J
Landon Davis
Zens
With no more additions this team reminds me more and I will have expectations closer to the 05-06 Illini then the 04-05 Illini. A good team with a good record who brought back starters but not THE starter and great Illini team, but not great all of basketball standards like 88-89 and 04-05 who still get brought up as best teams to not win it all.
Its definitely strange how two camps looks at the same team and 1 camp perceives a gaping guard hole and the other camp says this is the championship team as is and nobody even pretends the other is close to accurate.
Its definitely strange how two camps looks at the same team and 1 camp perceives a gaping guard hole and the other camp says this is the championship team as is and nobody even pretends the other is close to accurate.