OT: Hoops:Skyy Clark got a crystal ball pick to Illinois
2022 5 star combo guard who decommitted from Kentucky. I’d rather not see him at Illinois and I’m not sure how they land the talent they do. Illinois is the only in home visit he has had so far and he’s down to his final six schools, which are TN, Maryland, Louisville, Illinois, Washington and USC.
I’ve given my historical synopsis of Illinois basketball recruiting details in the past on this board,so I won’t go into every detail. But Illinois has been a fairly consistent dirty recruiting school for a long time. They took a brief hiatus when they got busted (ie Deon Thomas) or when they got cleaner coaches like Bruce Weber and John Groce. Underwood is full on doing the dirty stuff Illinois used to do, and it’s showing. Honesty, I’m not at all mad because that’s par for the course for most big time college programs.
Still odd that he can convince kids to go to Illinois given that all of his players seem to hate him.
So he's the basketball equivalent of Brian Kelly?
Eh. You’d be surprised what people can put up with when the compensation is quite good.
I am more puzzled as to why this is posted here. Slow news day-eh???
Two of his final six are big ten programs, I am a huge basketball fan and we could’ve used a talent like his for next year. And yes it is a slow news day overall
Especially considering Michigan isn't on the list of schools. So is Illinois actually a rival? 😂
No matter how much you hate Illinois, it's delusional to think Illinois is a "dirty recruiting school".
C'mon are you serious? Under Underwood they've missed out on almost every single elite prospect of Clark's caliber.
This is such a lazy take.
Hey. I was pretty clear that I'm not judging Illinois be being a "dirty recruiting school", so I don't hate Illinois like many here do. I have a lot of close friends who went there. With that, read the links below. They have very much been a dirty recruiting school in many ways. Its just that they took a ~15 year hiatus when they hired Bruce Weber and John Groce who were both very clean coaches. Lou Henson, Lon Kruger and Bill Self on the other hand were either caught with violations or accused of it.
Chicago basketball recruiting has to be one the most (if not THE most) corrupt recruiting grounds. After getting sanctions, Illinois couldn't really hang in the Chicago recruiting scene right after their sanctions, so they focused on downstate Illinois which (lucky for Lon Kruger) had some the best basketball talent (arguably on par with Chicago back then), particularly out of Peoria Manual High School. Three years in a row in the late 90s, Mr. Basketball all came from downstate Illinois: Sergio McClain (Peoria Manual), Frank Williams (Peoria Manual), and Brian Cook (NTBC - Lincoln High School). All went to Illinois. Williams and Cook were first round draft picks.
Hunter posted this 2 days ago on Instagram:
hunter.dickinson1 Ima go all out with the ones that I came in with #Year2
I’m really old, but A) that sounds like he’s coming back, maybe, and B) how has there not been a 300 comment thread with everyone’s interpretation of this?
Jalen Rose implied Dickinson was coming back on Jalen and Jacoby today. Not sure he knows what is happening but its better than nothing.
Wouldn’t it be #year3?
Exactly. That's the part I don't understand.
Perhaps he's referring to that he expects to be starting next year with four guys who where freshman during year two of his career. Or that it will be year two for the core of next year's team?
Word on the street is that Illinois arranged for a local business to compensate him very well. Oh wait that's legal now.
Michigan recruited Skyy pretty hard at one point, but fell out of contention. I think he's friends with Jett as well. But I doubt we get in the mix with Dug as our PG commit in the class already
Ant Wright on Twitter says he has word that he knows where Clark is going and emphasized his "camp did a good job" so I kinda feel like it's not Illinois. Also, as I got to watch Clark this year, I was never particularly impressed. He's got size for a PG, but isn't particularly athletic and always seems to be injured
In Ants conversation in green room, he said the school was orange and blue. It was pretty clear he’s going to Illinois.
Slightly unrelated, but have we heard what Kofi Cockburn's intentions are for next year? Getting him back is a much bigger deal for them than a freshman PG.