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32-21–10

Illinitime2
I know we don’t talk NBA much on this board but what a performance by The Joker last night. The guy is phenomenal!

Best big man play in the finals since???

All he does is win…

And Jamal Murray is the Sh….

No All Star invite. No All NBA Team Recognition…what a travesty.

Spoelstra pulled his starters at 2 min to go and the team cut the lead to 10. Too soon? I think so.

Even if you hate the NBA but love basketball you should check out Jokich and Jamal. Butler is worth the watch too but there’s only one of him. What Joker is doing is Wilt like in the stat lines. Amazing touch around the rim by him. Simply amazing!
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A few things...

bucshon
They have a full 13-man roster right now, but there's about a 50% chance (or higher) that a spot opens up. They are working through some things.

If a ride does open up, I believe the preference is to fill it rather than to go into the season with 12 scholarship players. The clock is ticking, though, as schools begin summer classes. That's not a hard deadline, but it's significant.

They won't really know what to expect from Jeremiah Williams until they get him in the gym and have him checked out by trainers, etc.

Personally, I see him more of a multi-year project than immediate help. If he can play this year and be effective, that's a bonus. A pass-first point guard with size who defends isn't a bad thing when you have wings who can score. But is he 100%?

Adding a veteran with multiple years left made sense. They lose five seniors, and I doubt Underwood wanted to rely on a bunch of freshmen and another madcap chase in the Portal with so much uncertainty.

Illinois will be interested in Antonio Reeves if he leaves Kentucky. He's not a point guard per se, but they would make it work. Adding shooting was an offseason priority.

The Illini will kick the tires on 2023 guards Chris Johnson and Simeon Wilcher. I don't think they would be the leader for either one. IMO, both kids had schools in mind when they asked out of their letters of intent from KU and UNC respectively.

NLI collectives aren't letting up even with signed players. It's crazy. People who I've talked to aren't sure who the major players will be for either kid yet, but should know very soon.

I really like both Johnson and Wilcher. When you have a chance to add high school talent of that caliber, you have to pursue it.

All of the newcomers aren't on campus yet. There's a different timetable for each kid. (That's not an alarm bell for anyone, at least not yet).

There are other possibilities. Stay tuned.
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How have Illini bball expectations changed in the NIL/portal era?

I
There are other threads to get into recent specifics or to debate Underwood's performance, but I was curious if your expectations for the program have changed now that we're in the era of NIL and the portal.

For example, it used to be fair to say that you throw out a coach's first two years because he's using someone else's players and building a culture. Now there is so much more roster turnover that it's very hard to build an enduring culture and you don't keep another coach's players very long. [On the football side, nobody is giving Deion Sanders a pass on this year's performance. Basketball rosters are even easier to turn over so you could get a job in March and have a brand new roster by June.] That's really just the portal effect there.

NIL also is a game-changer in recruiting expectations. First of all, the AD and boosters are driving the NIL totals so there is going to be greater accountability if the coach can't close the deal or if a highly paid player goes bust. Some of the roster management authority and power has been outsourced to the collective. I think that's a net negative in terms of the coach having control of the program and the locker room, which he's going to need to have elite success.

On the other hand, there are no more excuses when it comes to recruiting. If you are a Top 25 NIL $ school you should have a Top 25 recruiting class. You can't say "Kansas paid my recruit $200K under the table" or "everyone else is cheating and I'm doing it by the book." It's all out in the open market now.

There's also much less of a need to recruit in your neighborhood. How much is it really going to matter anymore that a player is in-state? These guys don't even stay in-state during high school these days. It matters very little. No more "must get" recruits in your backyard.

Finally, there's the need to re-recruit your own players. Can you develop guys long-term? Will they even stick around?

So it's a very different ballgame. (I didn't even mention conference realignment and TV money.) Do you think (independent of the coach) that the Illinois bball program is in a better position to compete now than before? Does that raise the bar for what you consider acceptable performance? Or is it going to be harder to compete at the very highest levels because we don't have a history of NCAA Tournament success and the blue bloods just have their advantages baked in even more? Are we locked into a certain tier? Does the coach even matter as much as he used to or can you just plug and play anyone into the NIL $ machine?

Thoughts?
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