Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

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#1,101      
here we go batman GIF

Anyone want to take a stab at the minute distribution / projected stat lines 🤣
Beer No GIF by de chinezen
 
#1,102      
I hope Louisville has enough coaching to make the tournament and play us.

I was in Indy in 89. First 2 rounds. Louisville was there. Their fans talked a bunch of smack (next to me) until we gave them the beatdown they deserved. Never nervous Pervis. Great player but....

Then in 2005 Pitino had a press conference before the final four. Talked a lot about how they could beat us. lol. They got a another beatdown. Looking forward to a third time.
 
#1,103      
The Blackwell decision makes a lot of sense now given his quote of wanting to play the lead guard role to show the league his PG skills

This was never about Andrej or Coleman - it was about Vaaks and Mirk being the initiators of the offense and I’m sure Brad was honest with his camp about that
 
#1,105      
Mirk is our less athletic Larry Bird. N he is! Skill.matters , especaiilly with bigs. N so does Lbs. . We need another post guy besides Z ofg the bench. N its not freaking our backup freshman guard! Stop.with that nonsense. If Z goes down then what? Mirk Morillo lol. !!!!! plz
 
#1,106      
There are probably one hundred top college programs in the country that would run through a brick wall to have a roster like ours. Not worried about Duke, Florida or anyone else for that matter. We are going to be a literal nightmare for teams to match up against. Bring them all on and fear no one. ILL for life. :chief::chief:
Z or tomi get hurt...then what?
 
#1,108      
There will be an adjustment defensively (Brad thinks he can be very good at this end), but offensively I expect a major impact right away.

Suuuuper underrated reply to @I-L-L 1318
imo. Amidst all the recent Blackwell->Dookie drama, I think some of us *hand up* hadn’t really FULLY stopped to think of the impact QC might have.

I think of some of the defensive transformations Brad has helped oversee for players who started out more offense-centric (i.e. Trent Frazier, Ben Humrichous)…. we already know QC is offensively gifted and really gets after it on the glass. If he can make that adjustment on defense that @LvilleILL1 is talking about 😮‍💨….. our starting 5 is gonna COOK 🔥
 
#1,109      
Dame Sarr to Illinois is back?!
Has he entered the draft?

I wouldn't be surprised to see him get picked way higher than anyone expects. Athletic 6'7/6'8 wings with long wingspans that have shown promise with shooting don't exactly grow on trees.
 
#1,112      
People in here need to understand that the talent across college basketball next year is not going to be the same as this year. There is not going to be an Arizona or Michigan like superteam, the transfers aren't as good overall, and the recruits aren't as high end compared to last year in terms of the elites.

Illinois has one of the four or five best rosters is the country. Could they push and add another stud? Sure, but it's not that easy. There are agents and other factors involved with that. I still stand by my thinking that they add someone over the next few months.

There are a ton of teams that have half a roster filled out with not a lot of options left, including blue bloods. It's okay to want more, but we are set to contend for a national championship next year. Have some faith in the evaluations that the staff made in Coleman and Morillo.
We will see. Before the season started Michigan was 7 and Zona was 13 and Duke was 6 and those three were the class of field at the end of the year. So there very well could be a super team, we just don't know it could be us. I would feel more comfortable if we didn't have 3 freshmen in the 9-man rotation.
 
#1,113      
There are probably one hundred top college programs in the country that would run through a brick wall to have a roster like ours. Not worried about Duke, Florida or anyone else for that matter. We are going to be a literal nightmare for teams to match up against. Bring them all on and fear no one. ILL for life. :chief::chief:
one hundred? triple that and you are still low. 357 probably closer to accurate
 
#1,116      
We’re going into a season where we very well will be preseason top 5, certified national title contenders, coming off a final four.. and this is how we’re acting lol.
 
#1,118      
Honest question, am I crazy for thinking Coleman will be an upgrade from post injury Kylan? Love boz, but 49% from 3 is lethal even if it’s HS.
Boswell shot 39% and 38% from 3 at Arizona and his sophomore year was on pretty high volume (made 66 3s). Wonder what he shot percentage-wise in HS.

Hard to project how well it translates.
 
#1,120      
In Coach Brad I trust. And especially Josh. We gonna be real fine.
 
#1,121      
Maybe fourth in the big ten… Illinois is going to struggle to guard athletic, physical PG/SGs man…
I see you got the gif treatment. I'll try to offer a strong counterpoint instead...

For championship odds, all four sportsbooks have UM as the highest among B1G, then Illinois, then MSU. After that, there's a big gap and no consensus on who's next. Still got to play the games, but you'd definitely be going against the grain with that opinion.
 
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#1,123      
Maybe fourth in the big ten… Illinois is going to struggle to guard athletic, physical PG/SGs man…
And more teams are going to struggle to guard Mirk, Dre, the Twin Towers as well...and it's not even close.....you have no faith on Coleman and his size and athletic blessings or Vaaks and Morillo's height and length....Dre is better defensively then you give him his credit for and can guard SG`s....did you watch the NCAA tourney?
 
#1,124      
Here’s my read on the Blackwell recruitment based on reading all 4 boards (Illinois, Duke, UCLA, and Louisville) during it:

— Just like Illinois insiders were confident in landing Blackwell from the jump, so were Duke insiders. According to them, Blackwell’s agent was having conversations about transferring there mid-season. I imagine those same conversations were happening on the Illinois side.

— My guess is dad really wanted him at Illinois, whereas he likely leaned Duke.

— While there was some noise around UCLA and Louisville, I doubt they were ever serious contenders. Blackwell’s agent is located in LA and went to UCLA, hence the visit. Louisville was likely used to drive the price up. But it sounds like it was always a two horse race between Duke and Illinois.

— The day Andrej announced his return, we fell out of the running for Blackwell. Two days later, Coleman signed. That points to Brad needing to make a decision: keep both Andrej and Coleman and pass on Blackwell or lose one or possibly even both by continuing to pursue Blackwell.

— Even if the staff chose to continue pursuing Blackwell, there was obviously no guarantee we would’ve landed him. Duke would’ve still been hard to beat.

— Blackwell going to Duke who’s stacked at guard (to me) points to the usage concerns being more internal than with Blackwell.

— I give Blackwell credit. When he entered the portal, he said he wanted to win. Louisville might’ve been a bigger bag, but he honored what he said he wanted. Though, I wish it would’ve worked out for him here.
 
#1,125      
Here’s my read on the Blackwell recruitment based on reading all 4 boards (Illinois, Duke, UCLA, and Louisville) during it:

— Just like Illinois insiders were confident in landing Blackwell from the jump, so were Duke insiders. According to them, Blackwell’s agent was having conversations about transferring there mid-season. I imagine those same conversations were happening on the Illinois side.

— My guess is dad really wanted him at Illinois, whereas he likely leaned Duke.

— While there was some noise around UCLA and Louisville, I doubt they were ever serious contenders. Blackwell’s agent is located in LA and went to UCLA, hence the visit. Louisville was likely used to drive the price up. But it sounds like it was always a two horse race between Duke and Illinois.

— The day Andrej announced his return, we fell out of the running for Blackwell. Two days later, Coleman signed. That points to Brad needing to make a decision: keep both Andrej and Coleman and pass on Blackwell or lose one or possibly even both by continuing to pursue Blackwell.

— Even if the staff chose to continue pursuing Blackwell, there was obviously no guarantee we would’ve landed him. Duke would’ve still been hard to beat.

— Blackwell going to Duke who’s stacked at guard (to me) points to the usage concerns being more internal than with Blackwell.

— I give Blackwell credit. When he entered the portal, he said he wanted to win. Louisville might’ve been a bigger bag, but he honored what he said he wanted. Though, I wish it would’ve worked out for him here.
Yeah Duke has a logjam for the 1-3 positions. In an era where every player is playing for their next NIL bag or jockeying for draft position I’d wager they’ll have a key player (or two) leave. Isiah Evans may stay in the draft and creep towards the lottery as players like Haugh (confirmed) and Morez (potentially) return to college ball.
 
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