Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

#476      
wc_illini
hooraybeer said:
when you bring in (by far) the best players year after year, shouldn’t the expectation be regular championships? duke donors aren’t paying for ACC titles.. the ACC stinks
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There are 21 Coach K years with publicly available KenPom rankings (20 tournaments due to COVID). Here's a summary of their final KenPom rankings:
Top 10: 16 (76%)
Top 5: 10 (48%)
Top 3: 8 (38%), last in 2018
Top 2: 5 (24%), last in 2011
#1: 3 (14%), last in 2010

Their final KenPom rankings under Jon Scheyer (four years) look similar if not better:
Top 10: 3 (75%)
Top 5: 2 (50%)
Top 3: 2 (50%)
Top 2: 1 (25%)
#1: 1 (25%)

You could argue that the last couple years under Coach K were also below standard, but that was really just his second-to-last year (affected by COVID). Ignoring that year wouldn't change the percentages much.

But Duke did win two national championships during those Coach K years. A very unreliable AI guess is that they "should" have won ~2.45 during that time based on their pre-tournament odds (or estimated odds using KenPom ratings), so right around what they did.

Another way to look at it: in those Coach K years, they won 1 championship for every 10 years, or 1 for every 5 years they finished top 5, or 1 for every 4 years they finised top 3. Under Scheyer, they haven't yet had enough total years or years in the top 5 or top 3 to say they're necessarily doing worse.

I think this also highlights how surprisingly low the championship odds are even for top tier programs, and how the path to a championship is to get many years with a top 3 final KenPom ranking.
 
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#477      
jamarvelous31
mysterio2525 said:
there is a guy named jokic.... may want to check him out
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sdiver68 said:
Magic Johnson, Game 6 1980 NBA Finals <--most celebrated

Jrue Holiday at 6'3" does it now

Let me know if you want some more...many examples across NBA and College
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Combo said:
Those around in '89 did. Bardo was capable of guarding all 5 positions. While he frequently hounded the opposing PG, he also guarded opposing bigs.

That's a big reason he was so valuable on a team with a very short frontline.
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Guys. 6'2 Boswell successfully guarded 4s on multiple occasions last year.

Being sarcastic because folks around here were losing their minds that 6'7 Morillo could/would ever need to guard a 4.
 
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#478      
Boomauer
Combo said:
Really hoping Jakstys is ready to contribute. He looks like he put on significant "good" weight, which we knew he needed to do. He's also pretty athletic and can shoot some from outside (which is important for a big in our system). We all know the 3-man rotation is Mirk and the Twins, but there will be times when we need something from someone else.
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JJ looked good early in the season against weaker teams but looked slow and glued to the floor against better teams before his health issue. Hope he regains his health, gets stronger and adds a bit of quickness to his game. 15 spots to fill and he is a big body.
 
#479      
ChiefGritty
hooraybeer said:
how many years of underachieving does JS get there before people start wondering if he can actually coach?
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The expectations at Duke are very high and they should be, but the thing we as outsiders always underrate about a situation like that is how badly the fans, and rich donors perhaps to an even higher degree than the fans at large, want to keep the job "in the family". To a truly irrational degree.

They could probably get Nate Oats or Todd Golden. They don't care. They want a Dookie.

Illini2010-11 said:
That is definitely what it sounds like the NCAA is planning. The end result will be much less clear, as lawsuits will happen almost instantaneously. I am sure some athletes already have lawyers ready to push a lawsuit through as soon as an announcement is made.

The stakes are very high, as there is a lot of money tied up in NIL, so I expect that nothing will be clean at all.
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Not to say that the legal process might not surprise us, but the NCAA has actually won a number of lawsuits around its eligibility rules.

Generally speaking, there isn't much disagreement that the NCAA is legally permitted to set basic, objective, facially neutral boundaries around eligibility. It's when it's exercising judgment in specific cases and making adverse rulings to specific individual players that it has been a sitting duck.

So we'll see.
 
#480      
wc_illini
Illinisnake said:
Of course he was, dude couldn't win it all with this team??

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The chaos of NCAAT results aside (they were #3 in final KenPom despite Zion missing a month during which they lost 3 games), that's the flipside of freshman-heavy rosters. Plenty of upperclassmen with low NBA prospects are better than 5* lottery-pick freshman in their single year.
 
#481      
Fly Illini Fly!
IMG_0839.jpeg

(Might be top 5 next year, Andrej)
 
#488      
AirTran
hooraybeer said:
how many years of underachieving does JS get there before people start wondering if he can actually coach?
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When .832 win pct in both the ACC and Overall - three trips to the elite eight (one to the FF) and two regular season conference championships and one ACC tournament title in 4 years becomes "underachieving" please do let all of us know!
 
#489      
jamarvelous31
AirTran said:
When .832 win pct in both the ACC and Overall - three trips to the elite eight (one to the FF) and two regular season conference championships and one ACC tournament title in 4 years becomes "underachieving" please do let all of us know!
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It really is.

It was already an elite brand with elite infrastructure and a top 3 national budget.

So 15 future NBA players (including 4 top 5 picks) & his choice of transfers came with a LOT of help to acquire.

The ACC is middling at best and it's wild that with all that talent & those advantages he can't even get 4th place.
 
#493      
Ga65
Combo said:
Really hoping Jakstys is ready to contribute. He looks like he put on significant "good" weight, which we knew he needed to do. He's also pretty athletic and can shoot some from outside (which is important for a big in our system). We all know the 3-man rotation is Mirk and the Twins, but there will be times when we need something from someone else.
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Think limited minutes unless we have injury but there will be occasions when JJ is needed.
 
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