Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#176      
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 TS% was 59.3- about the same as Wagler. He took a lot of 3s and FTs, so his FG% is meaningless
 
#177      
This team has a lot better overall talent than 05-06 and it's not close.
I personally ranked last year's team 4th since 88 89. You can quable about an exact number but 05 06 is somewhere around 6th 7th......this team is appearing to start at the 5th spot. Slightly worse then last year's. So closer to the 0506 team then the first spot. Only 2 guys who started the final four will be starting this year unless something changes I believe thats the same at 06.

If everyone plays to their max ability they can jump way up the list. A couple injuries and or underperfoming at the wrong spots they can drop off.
 
#178      
5% of loyalty: people who think we’re going to be bad and who clearly don’t know anything about basketball

90% of loyalty: people complaining about those people as if there is way more of it than there actually is

The other 5%: insiders trying to find out if they should give us any more info
5% of loyalty: likes cottage cheese
5% of loyalty: doesn't like cottage cheese
90% of loyalty: annoyed about posts about cottage chees
 
#179      
Yeah, it's not so much about individual roles as the traits and skills you can put in a five man lineup.

Last year's team had trouble with compact floor general true PG types. Fears, Braeden Smith, Nick Boyd, Donovan Dent, etc. At both ends, those guys could get where they wanted on offense and could get underneath our ballhandlers and gum us up at the other end.

That's going to get worse next year, not better. We got creative to work around that disadvantage last year, more creativity will be needed.

There are so many players who have this missing skillset, that's what's weird and a bit frustrating. We've got all these size/skill unicorns that are impossible to find, but there are tons of pugnacious little ballhandlers out there.

Let's go get one!
Sign me up for a pug!
pug gifmedogs GIF by Rover.com
 
#181      
I personally ranked last year's team 4th since 88 89. You can quable about an exact number but 05 06 is somewhere around 6th 7th......this team is appearing to start at the 5th spot. Slightly worse then last year's. So closer to the 0506 team then the first spot. Only 2 guys who started the final four will be starting this year unless something changes I believe thats the same at 06.

If everyone plays to their max ability they can jump way up the list. A couple injuries and or underperfoming at the wrong spots they can drop off.

Ya, but with Jake and Andrej coming back they combined to start 43 games last year...

Finding a way to take all those starts out of the equation is quite the creative loophole.
 
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#182      
I personally ranked last year's team 4th since 88 89. You can quable about an exact number but 05 06 is somewhere around 6th 7th......this team is appearing to start at the 5th spot. Slightly worse then last year's. So closer to the 0506 team then the first spot. Only 2 guys who started the final four will be starting this year unless something changes I believe thats the same at 06.

If everyone plays to their max ability they can jump way up the list. A couple injuries and or underperfoming at the wrong spots they can drop off.
1. 88-89
2. 04-05
3. 00-01
4. 25-26
5. 20-21
6. 23-24
 
#184      
Bored at work so I decided to look at the minutes distribution of the last 10 champions to see how deep their rotations went. Here's what I found:

- There's not one blueprint for success when it comes to minutes distribution.
- Here's the averages though
30+ mins = 2 players
25-30 mins = 2 players
20-25 mins = 2 players
15-20 mins = 1 player
10-15 mins = 2 players

Just based on this, I would expect:
30+ = Vaaks and Mirk
25-30 = Andrej and Coleman
20-25 = Tomi and Big Z
15-20 = Morillo
10-15 = Jake and whichever of the other freshmen that play the best

Of course all this could change depending on who else we bring in and I can also see Andrej and Coleman in the 30+ range as well
 
#185      
Here’s what I’m struggling with: We were ready to offer John Blackwell 4-5 million dollars. Ethan Brown or whoever else you want to discuss was on the squad when those conversations were ongoing, correct?

So Blackwell and his posse back off and now we have decided we’re good. Why??? I am not advocating that they have to spend 4-5 million dollars, but there is no reason to not spend a portion of that money and bring in a solid player. You can never have too much depth.

@PepeSilvia brought up a good point yesterday. Michigan lost LJ Cason in February and they were able to withstand that significant loss because of superior depth.
 
#190      
Scholarship vs. Walk-on isn't too much of a thing to track anymore. Every team has 15 roster spots to fill regardless of that distinction.

By my count our roster sits at 12.

FR (4):
Morillo, Brown, Coleman, Davis

SO (4):
Jakstys, Mirkovic, Fagbemi, Vaaks

SR (4):
T. Ivisic, Z. Ivisic, Davis, Stojakovic

3 open roster spots as we sit today.
Of course I missed Zens, thanks for those who pointed it out.
 
#192      
I personally ranked last year's team 4th since 88 89. You can quable about an exact number but 05 06 is somewhere around 6th 7th......this team is appearing to start at the 5th spot. Slightly worse then last year's. So closer to the 0506 team then the first spot. Only 2 guys who started the final four will be starting this year unless something changes I believe thats the same at 06.

If everyone plays to their max ability they can jump way up the list. A couple injuries and or underperfoming at the wrong spots they can drop off.
I am not great at math, but it seems we have 3 starters back in Tomi, Mirk and Andrej (technically, he came off the bench...to replace Jake, who also is back). So if it's 3 instead of 2, that's a 20% increase in starters back from the FF team or 50% better to have 3 than 2. Like I said, I struggle with math.
 
#193      
Good god this fanbase is getting worse by the day.
What I have seen is the same old THE SKY IS FALLING mentality over someone who will be a back up player.
So now we're at the point where we are griping about the season that just ended with us getting to a Final Four?
I think the suggestions for possible improvements are respectful and aren't implying any doom. Maybe they're bad ideas or undersell our current roster or are wishful thinking, but the staff made it clear they also wanted even more in their attempt to get Blackwell, so it's kind of ironic to criticize anyone wishing for more.

Last year's team ended the season ranked #5-7 in KenPom/Torvik/EvanMiya. Teams like that go into the NCAAT with ~7% odds to win it all, and our pre-season odds are currently around that also. With those odds every year, we'd have a ~50% chance of a natty in 10 years. Brad has brought us so far to even be thinking about this right now. And I think he would agree that we'd like those chances to continue to get better- meaning we need a handful of teams meaningfully better than last year's.

Maybe there's nothing else that can be done this year because we can't force whoever we want to play here, but we don't have to insult respectful opinions (much less the people sharing them).
 
#194      
His TS% was 59.3- about the same as Wagler. He took a lot of 3s and FTs, so his FG% is meaningless

I wouldn’t say it’s meaningless, but his eFG is about the same as Andrej so we can go that route too.

Simply put, he’s a bad fit with this current group because all he offers is scoring, which we have plenty of and thus makes zero sense to spend $5M+ to get something we already have.

Editing to add for all of the talk of his scoring ability, he didn’t even lead a 3rd tier Wisconsin team in scoring last season.
 
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#195      
This team has so many great personalities and variance of personalities it got me to thinking. If you could add one player from past Illinois teams that you could plug into this team, who would like that to be? Some will look at skill sets, some at athleticism, but whatever reason I think it would be fun just to discuss, dream and laugh about and maybe distract lol. My very first thought was L. Johnson just because I can't help but laugh and think of him and Mirk on and off the court. Good lord there would be interviews of Johnson or Mirk with a black eye or some minor injury from practice almost weekly. The hatred the team would receive from other teams fans on the road games would be deafening. lol Coleman would have a blast with this team as well
 
#196      
Here’s what I’m struggling with: We were ready to offer John Blackwell 4-5 million dollars. Ethan Brown or whoever else you want to discuss was on the squad when those conversations were ongoing, correct?

So Blackwell and his posse back off and now we have decided we’re good. Why??? I am not advocating that they have to spend 4-5 million dollars, but there is no reason to not spend a portion of that money and bring in a solid player. You can never have too much depth.

@PepeSilvia brought up a good point yesterday. Michigan lost LJ Cason in February and they were able to withstand that significant loss because of superior depth.

Technically, don’t think we’re done though. Insiders are indicating we’ll probably target someone after the portal closes.

Personally, I’m not convinced it’ll necessarily be a “guard” though.
 
#197      
I am not great at math, but it seems we have 3 starters back in Tomi, Mirk and Andrej (technically, he came off the bench...to replace Jake, who also is back). So if it's 3 instead of 2, that's a 20% increase in starters back from the FF team or 50% better to have 3 than 2. Like I said, I struggle with math.
I mean he didn't start in the final 4 so I didn't put that he started the final 4.
 
#198      
Ya, but with Jake and Andrej coming back they combined to start 43 games last year...

Finding a way to take all those starts out of the equation is quite the creative loophole.
I mean you're using the loophole. I just stated who started. You can make a good argument he was a pseudo starter.....but thats the loophole.
 
#200      
As much as I love the 88-89 team, the 04-05 team is the best Illini team ever as they came within a couple of plays short of 39-0. If James doesn't fumble the pass under the basket, Sylvester doesn't even get the three point shot off. It was so fun watching him play so awful in the BIG Tourney in person at the United Center that year. He was booed every time he touched the ball.
Secondly, hadn't we fallen so far behind NC, are legs wouldn't have been too tired to make those go ahead 3's at the end of the game.
The 88-89 team may have been more entertaining, however, the 04-05 team had the best guard trio in the history of D1 basketball.
 
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