“We are so incredibly young.”
Illini Basketball 2024-2025
true but even Scorsese couldn't have made anything like this with Bruce as his subject! Hell even with Bruce and Groce combined..
It would have turned into just a food Chanel short on frozen custard & lasagna!!
Could he possibly flash in the NBA like a Davis Bertans or Duncan Robinson? Kennard or Doug McDermott? Maybe more of a specialist, as opposed to a role player. I am kind of guessing, because we have no idea how good he'll be here. Maybe after the season, we laugh that this was even a discussion, or maybe he's better than that.
Quite true, much more talent, though just to be devil's advocate I remember being psyched that offseason about the prospect of having a starting 5 of Chester Frazier, Jamal Smith, Rich McBride, Brian Randle, and Shaun Pruitt along with Warren Carter, Trent Meacham, and that young bruising big in Carlwell... And in theory, that had the makings of a really solid team.
Little did we all know the hell that was to come in the following months... I still look back at that season sometimes as the what if everything just went to plan that year, where would we have been? We'll never know, but that season was the beginning of the end until Underwood. I still would pay almost anything to have gotten to see peak sober Jamar Smith for more than 1 season in the Orange and blue. Ah well. Thankfully we have a bright future to look forward to instead of looking to that dark past.
Shaun Pruitt actually kind of figured it out right at the end of his career. He nearly dragged that rwm to the big10 conference championship.
He has the ultimate vote, he has assembled a quality teamToo bad he doesn't have a vote in the AP poll
Definitely remember Jamar Smith starting to kill it in a few games, and looked like he could be a great player. Then the bottom dropped out with the car crash. Ugh!
Yes! We are setting the bar here and I think it will pay off. They are giving these kids what they want outside the lines. Now that they are getting the bag, we give them the fame they desire. Great job media team and coach for allowing it.
Kevin Sweeney assembled our team this year?? Put him on staff, immediately!
Just wonder what Dra could do against Smith. Believe more athletic and quicker and if student of game (like Trent) could be a critical piece. With the variety of talents on this team, it would seem we have guys who can matchup for any opponent. Does however seem BU makes other team matchup to us rather than than matching up to them.
Kevin Sweeney did what?
That’s about where Nick Anderson ranked. Sign me up
I recently re-watched the Clemson takedown of Arizona in the NCAA Sweet 16 last year and Kylan Boswell is a great defender. Whoever he defended, he was in their face and there was only one shot made against him the whole game.
One time there was a mismatch and the big Clemson center was backing him down to get a layup and Kylan swatted and stole the ball from him 5 feet from the basket.
Kylan can stick on Smith or anyone else and like a glove.
Jamar was the purest shooter I watched in my lifetime in the Orange and Blue. Every shot he took looked like it was going in. A 48% moderately large volume 3pt shooter in his freshman year, playing 18mpg. He was incredible. It's like imagining if Alfonso Plummer was a 20% better shooter. He was in Salim Stoudamire or Steve Kerr deadeye college shooter territory. Had he not been dealing with alcoholism and that drunken driving incident not happened, sky was the limit for him. I'm confident he would've broken all of our 3pt shooting records. He was special. What a devastating year that was in so so many ways.
Absolutely.
Jamar's last professional season (EuroCup) in 2019-20 he shot a blistering 53% from three point range across an entire season... and this was on volume, not a 'only shoot when I'm wide open' guy.
Ok now that the offseason is over I'm going back to my desire for this team to go undefeated and win the national championship. My rational mindset of patience and let's see all the dust settle during the portal summer is gone. Now is the time.....
One thing I only found out years later from an interview, was how much support Bruce gave him after the incident and he was kicked out of Illinois and how he helped get Jamar back on track and sober. And we can say many things about Bruce but that shows the type of person he is. Hard to forgive Jamar for what he did, but I'm really glad he was able to turn his life around for the better. Kid could always shoot it. It was the other stuff that got in the way. His senior year starting 5 would've been:
Sr Chester Frazier
Sr Jamar Smith
So Demetri McCamey
So Mike Davis
So Mike Tisdale
That's a damn good team. They were a 5 seed without Jamar. Probably would've been a 2 seed at worst with him. Crazy to think about.