Illinois Hoops Recruiting Thread (January-February 2018)

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#1,651      
kuhl84
PlayAZ said:
Well it has to be 4 or 5 we are not taking anyone under 6' afterall...so with that I take the 5. Ayo, Trice, Taylor, Jacobs and 5th year.:chief:
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That would work. If we can land Ramey or Jones, that's how it becomes 6.

Of the non-Freshman, I really want Taylor. He could be a difference maker with the way Underwood wants to play.
 
#1,654      
Deleted member 4960
Davo79 said:
Refresh our memory a lil what did he do that was so bad to make you think he had a bad attitude? I personally don't recall any issues with him I always thought he was a solid player.
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He had a bad attitude with Weber his last year because of playing time and he was shooting a lot of bad 3's when Weber brought him in to rebound!
 
#1,656      
Greensboro
kuhl84 said:
Over/under 4.5. I'll take the over. Pretty confident it will be 5 or 6.
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I will go with the under. Personally I don't think we need to blow things up. We are young, 5 freshman, 2 sophmores, 3 juniors, & only 1 senior with 2 open schollies. Fill the schollies, the freshman get better, Smith starts driving, Ebo keeps getting better, the offense becomes more rounded & balanced and things get easier for everyone else. The point on the JC & 5th year is the expectations are usually higher than the performance. I wouldn't give up any of next year's seniors for the random 5th year guy & I think it is too early to give up on any of the underclassmen.

We have had a couple of bad games this year, but outside of a few special seasons that has always been the case. We also have been there in most of the games and showed some fight. It isn't as bad as it looks in the record.
 
#1,658      
PlayAZ
CAHALL15 said:
The staff apparently still feels confident about Tevian. You may recall that Colin Castleton’s dream school was Florida and look where he went.

Thorne pre injury was a different player. He was averaging 13.4ppg and 9.8rpg before the injury.
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Still would rather have either of them to Thorne, Thorne just seemed to be a lumbering player, my preference would be Trice/Taylor the opposite.:chief:
 
#1,659      
PlayAZ
Greensboro said:
I will go with the under. Personally I don't think we need to blow things up. We are young, 5 freshman, 2 sophmores, 3 juniors, & only 1 senior with 2 open schollies. Fill the schollies, the freshman get better, Smith starts driving, Ebo keeps getting better, the offense becomes more rounded & balanced and things get easier for everyone else. The point on the JC & 5th year is the expectations are usually higher than the performance. I wouldn't give up any of next year's seniors for the random 5th year guy & I think it is too early to give up on any of the underclassmen.

We have had a couple of bad games this year, but outside of a few special seasons that has always been the case. We also have been there in most of the games and showed some fight. It isn't as bad as it looks in the record.
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What you are calculating is the facts as we know them, the reported things, scores, what we can see (tv), etc. What you are not possibly calculating is a big (IF) issue that players may have. They may not want to play this way any longer, they may not want to get yelled at all the time, they may just feel like they can do better somewhere else.

Not saying they will, but I would bet at least 1 will feel this way if not 2 (counting grad (s)? If this is the case we have automatically more holes to feel right away with almost immediate playing time to sell.

Juco players would almost jump at the chance to go to P-5 conference to prove themselves and I personally think Trice/Taylor can more than just hang in our conference with their athleticism.
 
#1,660      
ForWhomTheBellTolls
I'ld actually prefer to add 3, 4 tops. We've been in the NCAA tourney "desert" for so long without water, that I would prefer to make sure when we make it out, that it is based on a program built on a strong foundation, with upperclassman who have stayed despite not having initial "instant" success. This isn't a sprint, its a marathon. Let's gradually improve the talent while developing the players who want to be at Illinois. Outside of the top 30 recruits or so, freshman are gonna be freshman -- look at Leron's jumps from freshman to sophomore to junior years. Look at AJ. Look at Malcolm. Until we are regularly landing top 30 talent (which will come as we win more) we should understand and support the process necessary to build the foundation necessary for long term winning. Lou Henson was a great coach, but he also led an organization that enjoyed a high level of sustained recruiting success over an extended period of time. We haven't recruited at that level since Bill Self left.

It's not most of these kids fault that they aren't (and weren't) who we (and not the folks who know and understand college basketball) hoped that they would be.

Year 1 has been below expectations in total wins, but I'm far less frustrated with the product on the court at this point than I was in the later years of the Weber and Groce tenures. At least now, the majority of our players making underclassman-type errors are indeed underclassmen. It seems we have a bunch of high basketball IQ kids who are learning what it takes to adapt to a dramatic step up in competitive talent level. We will benefit from this learning in years to come.
 
#1,661      
foby
sacraig said:
I feel confident in saying that if we had Dominique Keller playing for our team this year, we'd be at least on the bubble.
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*tapping my tongue in cheek meter*
 
#1,662      
Deleted member 4960
By the way watching Nebraska why didn't we get Isaiah Roby?
 
#1,663      
ChazzReinhold
Chathamillini said:
By the way watching Nebraska why didn't we get Isaiah Roby?
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From May 4 2015: IlliniBrave75 - From that same article, I was wondering why it seems like we never even took a flier on this kid? It's not like 2016 is a class loaded with other talented options. I understand that he is not a PG and he is not a big (although he has grown to 6'8"), but by all account he is a talent.

Isaiah Roby, SF/PF, Quad Cities Elite – Roby keeps on growing, and is nearly 6-foot-8 now and also improving. He still needs to get better as a shooter, but Roby went to work all weekend long. He scored down low, made plays off the bounce, and just was solid in producing double-double type efforts game in and game out. Headed to Nebraska, Roby is someone with major upside.

And the reply from IlliniTargetAquired - After seeing him in person, he is not a Big caliber player. Decent handles for his size but he is not very active and does not put a stamp on the game as often as he should. He is an extremely poor man's DJ Williams imo

oops
 
#1,664      
Illini_1979
sacraig said:
Okay, maybe not "at least" on the bubble. Maybe "sniffing the bubble" is more accurate. I have a pretty consistent track record on this board of having a rosier outlook on this turd of a season than most of the doomsayers around here. I honestly believe that if we had even one player who could defend the post just a little bit, we'd have 3 or 4 more wins.
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Actually, if we had just improved our play at the end of a few games we would have 3-4 more wins. No new personnel needed. Growing pains for freshmen are a b*tch.
 
#1,665      
kuhl84
sacraig said:
Okay, maybe not "at least" on the bubble. Maybe "sniffing the bubble" is more accurate. I have a pretty consistent track record on this board of having a rosier outlook on this turd of a season than most of the doomsayers around here. I honestly believe that if we had even one player who could defend the post just a little bit, we'd have 3 or 4 more wins.
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He refused to rebound or play defense for Weber. Doubtful he could play for BU.
 
#1,666      
Deleted member 51
Illini_1979 said:
Actually, if we had just improved our play at the end of a few games we would have 3-4 more wins. No new personnel needed. Growing pains for freshmen are a b*tch.
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The best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores.

Al McGuire
 
#1,669      
Joel Goodson
Kramer116 said:
I think we end up with 5 new players including Ayo.
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Agree. 2 transfers out, 5 incoming players, including 1 grad transfer.

Best case: Ayo, Ramey, Jones, Taylor/Trice, Cunningham

Expected: Ayo, Jacobs, Trice, Cunningham and (I really hope) Jones
 
#1,672      
IlliniDent
ivwilsoniv said:
Check out this Okoro dunk. This is unbelievable. When he threw that up... no way he's dunking that. Then BOOM.

https://twitter.com/chibestfrank88/status/965787008437276674
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