those brows are E L I T E - everyday eyebrows lol.
Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
I really really want this young man on the 27-28 Illini.
I am crossing my fingers hoping he won’t be … hoping he is the next one and done! Then Q”Kitt for 27-28! Just keep pumping out lotto picks!!! a man can dream right?
This.
If he's one and done, our season went really, really well because he will have answered one of the minimal amount of question marks that this team does have.
Moussa Kamissoko, Long Island Lutheran , Small Forward
2023-24: Played freshman season at Pawling (N.Y.) Trinity-Pawling School.
247sports.com
I am thinking the same!!!
I’d simply ask for a 3 and D guy. We don’t have any of those and the way this offense is designed I’m surprised at that. We don’t have seriously good 3-point shooters percentage wise (Vaaks might be that) and we don’t have seriously good wing top of the key defenders. We surely don’t have anyone who excels at both of them.
I’d also take a post defender who has a decent offensive game that can back a guy down and stretch to the perimeter and guard.
Joel Goodson
- it's all ball bearings, nowadays
just another list:
Kelly is the only '28 on it
Kelly is the only '28 on it
IMO, there's a definite top 7 in CBB in any order: Duke, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Arizona, UConn, Tennessee.
Hard to not have Duke and Florida #1 and #2. Though I would throw Arizona in there if they get Peat back.
Hard to not have Duke and Florida #1 and #2. Though I would throw Arizona in there if they get Peat back.
Lets see how it plays out.
Last year preseason AP Top 25:
1. Purdue - finished 6th in B1G
2. Houston - S16
3. Florida - R32
4. UConn - lost NC game
5. St John's - S16
6. Duke - E8
7. Michigan - NC
8. BYU - R64
9. Kentucky - R32
10. Texas Tech - R32
Only 2 or 3 of those teams did anything remotely noteworthy... and that is a preseason ranking from October (for reference, its currently May)
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"anything remotely noteworthy in the tournament"
Several of them did just fine throughout the year and lost in the crapshoot that is the tournament
Crazy that Purdue and Houston were 1-2.
Purdue was pretty good. 30 wins, Conference tournament champs, E8 in the tournament, and an all time historic NCAA assists leader. Houston was no slouch either
Well, 9th man’s value doesn’t quite have to do with a positional need, but more-so to add a body who, if thrown into a b10 game, won’t be a liability.
Here’s why the #9thman is important.
First off, as much as we love setting 200min as the limit for predicting players’ minutes… truth is it basically never turns out that way.
Here’s our total minutes played per game over the past 3 seasons among rotational players (what I’m labeling as “rotational” is basically having appeared in most games that season).
2024:
= 203.9 minutes total
2025:
= 206.4 minutes total
2026:
= 204.4 minutes total
So, let’s just say as a baseline it’ll be 204 available to distribute this season. My approximate guess at where things stand with the top 8:
Andrej - 32
David - 31
Vaaks - 30
Coleman - 27
Tomi - 27
Z - 18
Jake - 18
Morillo - 15
= 198
That leaves you with about 6 minutes left for the 9th man. As it stands, Brown or Zens would be the beneficiary of those minutes.
They were indeed "pretty good"
Preseason #1 nationally and ended up 6th in the B1G... probably not where you want to be if you were preseason #1
I'd say making the S16 is "remotely noteworthy." Also, if you told me that we'd have 5-1 odds of making the NC game and 10-1 odds of winning a natty In May before the season starts I'd take that, and I think the other 9 teams on the list likely would too.
That's a fine nitpick (and remotely noteworthy is subjective), but if your team was ranked #2 (Houston) or #5 (St Johns) then a S16 is not really close to meeting the expectation, which was the real point here
Florida #3 and loses to Iowa in R32... that's not great
BYU, Kentucky and Texas Tech to round out the top 10 and none of them got further than R32
The mpg stat is flawed, if you get. DNP, it doesn’t affect your MPG average, which leads to totals>actual minutes per game. (200)
If you look at aggregate minutes, it’s noisy because guys who wouldn’t get minutes in competitive games can get significant run in blowouts.
Occasionally, there are over 200 minutes a game, (OT) but in those kinds of games the 9th man probably isn’t playing barring injury or significant foul trouble. Even then, 6-8 are going to just play more.
When considering the 9th man, the main utility is mitigating the impact of a long term injury. The role of “injury mitigation specialist” is a tough sell.
These teams were ranked in the top 10
I'd expect some tournament success since that's what people claim to care about most (we see constant argumentation on here that regular season success really doesn't matter a whole lot... I disagree with that, as it seems you do as well, but that viewpoint is held by a large number of folks).
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
Five losses at Mackey is still what I consider mind blowing.
Illinicpa14
- Chicago
Would you take that year right now for us next year?
RabidDawgClassic
- Los Angeles, CA
I wouldn’t think so, although admittedly, there is a portion of the Venn Diagram where there’s some intersection. Wade’s case will mostly hinge on the eligibility of players who’ve gone through the NBA draft and/or signed an NBA contract. That applies to none of our guys.
Having said that, I feel Wade and LSU may have a better than decent chance at winning any lawsuit. The amateur vs professional argument has already been blown up with the inclusion of former international pros. A good lawyer could argue both that there’s no distinct difference between Euro pros and NBA pros and that denying NBA pros a return to college could be considered restraint of trade. Of course, this would blow up college athletics as we know it, but that’s been the trend for quite a while now anyway.
It's telling that our past 3 top 3 conference finishes (25,23&21) our 9th man has averaged 3.8 mpg in conference games (last year was 1.6!)
It feels like a silly argument driven by folks being bored.
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