Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

[Illini2010-11]

It might take a while, but Illinois will add another player to its roster.

There are quite a few agents making inquirers. They have to sort through those and see who fits.

It is so great to finally be at this end of the table and not on the side of being on bidding wars and making late pivots just to fill out a very competitive roster (which Brad has shown over and over again that he can still get great rosters late in the offseason). We are in very good shape.

 

[wpr]

Committed April 22nd but wasn’t official until he signed on July 31st

I remember all of the people freaking out because nothing was finalized for 3+ months (and also should note what a waste of time that was worrying about it!)

Fan base freakouts? No way.

 

[FI_890526]

This isn’t true:

View attachment 49989

Good catch. Didn’t sign until July 31, so I got confused.

 

[1m4tr]

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

Kenny Battle. 100%.

 

[Fly Illini Fly!]

This isn’t true:

View attachment 49989

Legitimately stumbled upon this post while looking through the threads … and all the gifs that followed

 

[BlueLeader]

I'm very excited for some young athleticism coming into the back court this is what has been missing.

 

[wpr]

I think our fans are not only aware of that, they're SO aware of it that this once-in-a-generation opportunity to actually be one of those teams has folks taking an unusual degree of emphasis on this roster being "complete".

Plus we were huffily sniffed at about how going to the Final Four was going to mean "money would be no issue" and lo and behold we backed off the mega-dollar top portal guy yet again. Some of us have evolved to ignore those tea leaves by now, but alas.

I find it hard to believe that anyone feels the team is "complete".
Not the coaching staff, the players, the boosters, the fans nor the media.
They are still looking to add players.

 

[Frank]

Boz being able to come back for a 5th year would be huge. For the team, yes, but more importantly, for this board.

 

[Muskie]

The Davis vs Andrej thing is pretty simple. Yes, Davis started at the end of last year. No, Davis probably won't be starting next year. Andrej and Boswell couldn't really play at the same time at the end of last year. Boswell started, Andrej didn't.

Coleman is a true shooting guard (Boswell isn't). Coleman and Andrej should fit better together than end of year Andrej and Boswell.

I agree completely with this!

 

[Det_Illini_fan]

Boz being able to come back for a 5th year would be huge. For the team, yes, but more importantly, for this board.

Someone pointed out yesterday that it might be a bigger deal for other teams than ours, and I have to agree. There are some players, like from Purdue, that I’d rather not have to think about again.

 

[wncillini]

Boz being able to come back for a 5th year would be huge. For the team, yes, but more importantly, for this board.

Love him and would welcome him back. However it would be a net negative with the amount of teams we would be playing getting better and more players back.

 

[Bucktown]

Fully agreed. That 05-06 had so little support for Auggie and Dee Brown. There was plenty of hype around some others like Brian Randle but really there were just two reliable scorers in that squad.

So true. I love upper classman Chester Frazier, but he played 13 minutes a game on that team backing up Dee Brown and had an effective field goal percentage of 21.9%.

 

[blackdog]

Its not true that teams only have 1 body thats an experienced big man to split to back up 2 spots. Ben played a vital role this year with Mirk and Z and tptally why i hope and think we add another big.

Go look at B1G rosters. The vast majority have only 3 guys over 6'8 getting regular minutes. Some do have 4 but very few have a real rotation where they are playing with 4 big guys. A lot of the bench bigs are in no way good enough to able to exploit a matchup anyway.

 

[JoseyWales83]

5 of our top 8 players are back from a final four team, we added the second highest ranked recruit in Illinois 247 era history, the 12th highest, and a top tier guard transfer that has an incredibly high ceiling.

Next year's team will be better than this year's team in a CBB world where the top teams arent as separated as they were last year.

 

[March2TheArch]

Boz being able to come back for a 5th year would be huge. For the team, yes, but more importantly, for this board.

Then they’ll immediately complain about how Boz and Andrej can’t share the court. You can’t win.

 

[NarrowJ]

Ok, this one just hit the portal... elite-athletic 6'3" senior combo guard recognized as a premier perimeter defender and dangerous transition scorer

Checks all of the Loyalty 'we need another guard' boxes

 

[Emerson Bigguns]

Boz being able to come back for a 5th year would be huge. For the team, yes, but more importantly, for this board.

While its a non-zero chance, I'd say its remote. Even if they pass the 5 in 5 rule, there is no indication whether it would apply to guys who are currently out of eligibility, guys currently on rosters, or only guys who enter NCAA sports after the ruling. Any of those could be included. I think the first is the least likely.

It would create the kind of mayhem the rule is trying to avoid.

Besides, does anyone want to have to look at Braden Smith anymore? I don't.

 

[EmeraldCityIllini]

Ok, this one just hit the portal... elite-athletic 6'3" senior combo guard recognized as a premier perimeter defender and dangerous transition scorer

View attachment 49993

Checks all of the Loyalty 'we need another guard' boxes

Can’t be right - I’m told UNC has a super team. Wonder if this means Juke and McNeil are UNC bound.

We did have Trimble ties the first go around. But he’s another one where I’m not sure he’s even eligible lol

 

[Chase321]

Ok, this one just hit the portal... elite-athletic 6'3" senior combo guard recognized as a premier perimeter defender and dangerous transition scorer

View attachment 49993

Checks all of the Loyalty 'we need another guard' boxes

Except for not having any eligibility left at the moment.

Also his last name isn’t Blackwell.

 

[millineum]

8 man rotation is doable but any injuries we would be screwed. I’d prefer to add at least one option with some lateral quickness.

 

[Tevo]

I dont think Morrillo will play the 4 in B10 for 5 minutes all season unless we have an injury. If so, thats scary to me.

Really, it would be scary for him to play >5 minute? What could possibly happen that would be so horrible. Brad's not going to put him into spots where it's crunch time and he can't perform. He could absolutely cover the last minute before a media timeout in the first half of a handful of games, or during blowouts. Not to mention, with normal switches, everybody should be able to guard every position for 30 seconds at a time. If you want to argue that he shouldn't be a regular rotation guy there, fine, but to act like he couldn't spend 5 minutes in that role is silly.

 

[lstewart53x3]

I’m curious what everyone thinks about our depth.

If we had our best player go down with injury, do we think we have a backup good enough to come in and win a national championship?

 

[FightinIllini30]

Legitimately stumbled upon this post while looking through the threads … and all the gifs that followed

View attachment 49990

I don’t know about “always been right”

Exhibit A)

 

[CrazedUIFan]

It seems as though we are expecting a college team to be constructed like an NBA team with a lot less money.

 

[wc_illini]

The problem with a lot of these takes is that this is being presented to only be obtainable through the portal.

It’s like some are ignoring just how big of a bust Petro was in relation to expectations, while simultaneously ignoring that the room for (roster) improvement is already in the room.

Im giving these freshman all the minutes they can get.
The chances that a portal addition is a bust is at least equal to, if not greater at this point, than all of our freshmen are a bust.

Yeah, I'm not too hung up on where it comes from. There are varying degrees of risk/ceilings/floors even within each channel (portal/high school/overseas)

But I've been curious what's reasonable to expect from a consensus #27 freshman. The average Torvik PRPG! for the 247 Consensus #24-30 guys this past year was 1.4. All of them were between 1 and 2 except Malachi Moreno was 2.6 and CJ Ingram was 0.5. Our top 5 by % of minutes ranged from 3.3-6.5 and our next 3 were 2.1-3.0. The freshman averaged 40% of their teams minutes (8-64%). Our top 6 played >55% and our top 8 played >40% of our minutes.

I did the same for the 247 Consensus #46-54 guys (two redshirts, so this is still 7 players). Their average Torvik PRPG! was 1.2 (0.1-2.2) and they averaged 42% of their teams minutes (some went to lower tier teams).