Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread

[bavanga3]

Saying they lost a lot is an understatement to say the least.

They lost three potential lottery picks. What other team lost that type of firepower? That frontcourt was everything to them. Just ONE of them missing would have changed their season. I'm sorry, but losing all three, plus their normal graduating seniors(Barnett, most notably), that's four starters gone. No way they reloaded to a point where they can be just dropped into the top 5.

Now, can they come together and be a top 5 team? Absolutely. The talent is there to be very, very good. There are a lot of teams like that. I look at Louisville. They loaded up, but nobody is making any assumptions on anything with them.

You just don't lose an NBA roster and pick up where you left off. May is a really, really good coach, but he didn't have to be John Wooden to win with that team last year.

They didn't lose 3 potential lottery picks. I would say 1. McCoy isn't the only one expected to contribute. Their entire class of transfer bigs are going to be starting or first off the bench. And by the way, all those transfers had better numbers than Aday Mara and Morez Johnson the year before they transferred. So quite honestly, to expect them not to take a leap forward as well with superior talent around them is questionable. They've earned every bit of their ranking.

 

[OB positive]

They didn't lose 3 potential lottery picks. I would say 1. McCoy isn't the only one expected to contribute. Their entire class of transfer bigs are going to be starting or first off the bench. And by the way, all those transfers had better numbers than Aday Mara and Morez Johnson the year before they transferred. So quite honestly, to expect them not to take a leap forward as well with superior talent around them is questionable. They've earned every bit of their ranking.

I seriously doubt they take leaps forward. I look for Michigan's frontcourt to be a level or two lower this year. Especially considering the gaurds and wings they have returning. They are going to want their time in the spotlight.

 

[EmeraldCityIllini]

They didn't lose 3 potential lottery picks. I would say 1. McCoy isn't the only one expected to contribute. Their entire class of transfer bigs are going to be starting or first off the bench. And by the way, all those transfers had better numbers than Aday Mara and Morez Johnson the year before they transferred. So quite honestly, to expect them not to take a leap forward as well with superior talent around them is questionable. They've earned every bit of their ranking.

Per usual, answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

If it’s not 3 lottery picks, it’s 3 first round picks with one or two close to fringe lotto picks. And while McCoy might be a higher pick than Yaxel one was a 24 year old man and the other a kid - kinda like comparing Chris Cenac to Yaxel.

They’ll be really good again tho

 

[NarrowJ]

They didn't lose 3 potential lottery picks. I would say 1. McCoy isn't the only one expected to contribute. Their entire class of transfer bigs are going to be starting or first off the bench. And by the way, all those transfers had better numbers than Aday Mara and Morez Johnson the year before they transferred. So quite honestly, to expect them not to take a leap forward as well with superior talent around them is questionable. They've earned every bit of their ranking.

They do have a highly ranked freshman class coming in as you said (its 4th not 2nd though). Their class is also ranked so highly due to the way they rank the classes... having more recruits weights your ranking, so having 6 freshman coming in gives them a higher 'score'... really only one of those freshman is someone I'd expect to have a major contribution in McCoy. Couple other fringe top 50 kids, but as we know those are rarely big difference makers as freshmen. How good can we expect them to be when half of their roster are freshmen?

Now that we've established their 2nd ranked recruiting class is actually 4th and that there isn't much production expected to come from said recruiting class, lets look at the transfers:

Mara is projected around the end of the lottery. Is the guy coming in (Thiam) as good as Mara? Doubtful.

Morez is projected mid-to-late first round. Can we expect J.P. Estrella to be as good as Morez was for them? Yikes.

Lendeborg was the B1G POY and projected to go in the late top 10. How does Jalen Reed (I know... who?) slot in as a replacement? Sheesh.

Then you have two super senior guards in Burnett & Gayle. They have McKenney & McCoy to replace them, who are good players, but have 9 years less CBB experience than the Burnett/Gayle combo did.

Cason is out for the season.

I see them as a top 15/20 team as they sit right now. Maybe they add someone significant, but I think they're at 14 or 15 players so I'm going to doubt that happens as well.

Final note just to circle back to the freshman class ranking -- only one of the F4 teams from last year had a top 10 class (Arizona). Michigan and Illinois had freshman recruiting classes ranked 30th and 34th, respectively.