With Ayo Dosunmu on board, and Talen Horton-Tucker including Illinois in his final three, you can see some pieces of the Illini basketball recruiting puzzle starting to fit. Brad Underwood has the top rated player in the state (Dosunmu) for the class of 2018 in the fold and two scholarships left.
One could go to Horton-Tucker, who took an official visit to Champaign this past weekend, and then on Monday narrowed his list down to three. Xavier and Iowa State are in the running for him along with Illini basketball, and THT took his official at UI more recently than his trips to Xavier and Iowa St.
That could be a great sign, as Dosunmu also took his final official visit at Illinois before then committing. We’ll know for sure on Thursday as Horton-Tucker just announced that he will reveal his decision Thursday at 6:30 PM at Simeon Career Academy.
So who’s next?
Champaign’s Tim Finke is a big man Illini basketball needs, as they have some holes to fill in the front court. He’s rated the #88 overall recruit in the nation by Athlon and the 24/7 Sports Crystal Ball predictions are showing 100% Illini basketball right now. That’s one school of thought.
The other narrative regarding the younger brother of current Illini forward Michael Finke is that he’s been a Vanderbilt lean for some time.
Illinois had cooled on recruiting Finke, but word is that’s starting to warm again.
He took an unofficial campus visit in August.
Next we look much further ahead, and at Normal West’s Francis Okoro who’s ranked #23 overall in the nation by Athlon, for 2019. Then you have another blue chip prospect in 2020 guard Adam Miller, who’s Dosunmu’s teammate at Morgan Park.
As you can see below Ayo is actively publicly recruiting both to join him at Illinois on Twitter. There’s no better way to recruit talent than already having talent (especially when they’re interested in recruiting) on board.
Yes sir lil bro! You up next ?? https://t.co/0Ays2owfCF
— Dos (@AyoDos_11) October 20, 2017
Lil bro up next! ?? https://t.co/r5vZIJEQTk
— Dos (@AyoDos_11) October 22, 2017
Ayo has made it known that he will help recruit his Mac Irvin Fire teammate Horton-Tucker as well.
The fourth target to keep an eye on is E.J. Liddell, a four star power forward out of Belleville (Belleville West H.S.) The 6-7, 220 pound blue chipper has a long college list right now, and it includes Illinois, DePaul, Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois State among others.
The Crystal Ball predictor has him going to Mizzou though; I guess we’ll see.
All in all, Illini basketball needs to lock up THT, and Miller down to road to once again become the destination for elite Chicago talent. No more losing out on those guys to Kentucky, Kansas and Duke; they need to build a proverbial recruiting moat around Chicagoland. They have the past and present to do so, with the future in the works.
New Illinois assistant Ron “Chin” Coleman was the leading recruiter on Ayo and is taking the reins on trying to secure Horton-Tucker.
He is the former head coach of the Mac Irvin Fire, arguably Chicago’s best AAU program, founded by the patriarch of southside Chicago dynasty.
Miller and Dosunmu’s high school coach, Nick Irvin hails from that dynasty.
In other words, the infrastructure and connections are there to maintain a consistent pipeline. Illini basketball needs to get it done in Chicago first and foremost above all else (don’t @ me Illini basketball fans in central and southern Illinois). With both the 2005 national runner-up team and the 1989 Flyin Illini Final Four team, four of the five starters were Chicagoland natives.
The track record and blue print is established. We had an exclusive chat with Nick Anderson, legend of that ’89 team on this very topic, and he had a lot of interesting insights to share.
The most important part of recruiting Chicago is that you can easily get a domino theory in effect, as you have so much talent so close to one another, as it’s all concentrated in a high population density area.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now and Minute Media. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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