illini basketball 09-10 preview

Over at fightingillini.com I just happenned to see that Illinois Basketball just signed a top-10 recruiting class (incoming fall of 2010). Recurits ranked as high as #4 by ESPN. Great. So I thought I'd take a screenshot and throw it up here to see how we look a couple years from now.


Cool. But what about now? So I had to do a little digging, but turns out last year we signed the #8 recruiting class:
Sounds good. I tend to not start thinking about college hoops until mid-Februrary or so, but this looks promising. But that page was from a year ago, so I thought I should take a look at a box score from the last exhibition game to see if our team looks as advertised.

So sorting by minutes played:

McCamey, G, 6'3" Junior
Davis, F, 6'9" Junior
Richardson, G, 6'3" Freshman (P-town!)
Tisdale, C, 7'1" Junior
Jordan, G, 6'1" Junior (who left and came back)
Paul, G, 6'4" Freshman
Keller, F, 6'7" Senior

So we have two freshman who got significant minutes last week. Also, Griffey played 10 minutes; Bertrand didn't see action.

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Next year's star recruits:

Richmond 6'8" wing
Head 6'4" guard (Luther's brother)
Leonard 7'0" center

So next year we should allegedly have 3 elite (top-75 as recruits) guards, 1 wing, and 1 center. Sounds good on paper. They play games on paper, right?

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The best preview I can think of would be Vegas odds.

To Win Big 10 Championship

* Iowa +3000
* Northwestern +2000
* Indiana +2000
* Penn State +1500
* Wisconsin +1200
* Illinois +1200
* Minnesota +1000
* Michigan +500
* Ohio State +500
* Purdue +200
* Michigan State +175

So Vegas thinks we're a middle of the pack team this year. Okay. I guess I can't argue, but I wouldn't mind putting $25 down in the hope of winning $300.

Maybe I'll try and keep an eye on this team, seeing if Paul and DJ are the real deal.

The 09-10 Illini tip-off the season tomorrow night vs SIUE. A conservative prediction: ILL 256, SIE 11.

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Oh yeah, and just to keep track of it, here is the stupidly early Bracketology:

Oh no, we're trending down!

Projected Big Ten 2010 Tourney Teams:

Wisconsin (10)
Minnesota (6)
Illinois (5)
Ohio State (4)
Michigan (4)
Purdue (2)
Michigan State (1)

What do you know, that looks remarkably similar to the Vegas odds.