Illinois Basketball- Looking forward to 21-22 season

Illinois Basketball has their ship back on course. After an off-season of losing players and assistant coaches, things have calmed don for head coach Brad Underwood. First of all,Underwood was convinced he lost center Kofi Cockburn to the NBA, but after he went through the early process, he withdrew and then he stated he had three schools he was considering go to next season. They were Florida State, Kentucky, or back to Illinois.

Florida State is because he liked head coach Leonard Hamilton and at Kentucky is what the program status and they hired to of the assistant coaches from Illinois in Orlando Antigua and Ron “Chin” Coleman.Thee guys spent time recruiting him.

Akk if that said and Cockburn returned to the Illini program and Brad Underwood.The coach is quoted as saying;

“There were no secrets, no clouds, there was tremendous communication. He knew that if he came here his jersey would end up in the rafters as an All-American, and that’s really big at Illinois. His legacy is here, and I think that’s why he ultimately decided to come back.”

A third assistant left to become as assistant at his alma mater Gonzaga.

Illinois Basketball Departures and Returnees

Illinois basketball did lose some key players from the program . They included Ayo Dosunmu who will stay in the NBA draft and frehman Adam Miller as he transferred to LSU. Due to COVID-19 De’Monte Williams and Trent Frazier, both guatds, will have another year of eligibility and return to Champaign.

Transferrin in will be Alfono Plummer, a 6’1’guard. He was the second leading scorer om the Utah Ute last year with 13.9 points per game. Also, 6’0″ w Omar Payne who previously played two years at Florida. This collection of players could likely see t Illinois basketball ranked in the Top Ten to begin the 21-22 season.

Illinois Basketball Assistant Coaching Hires

First, Brad Underwood promoted Geoff Alexander to an assistant. He has been working in a different capacity for four year in the Orange and Blue program. He was an assistant coach with Evansville (5 years), Eastern Illinois (1 year) and Idaho State (5 years) before joining the Illini. The experience in knowing what to do as an assistant is there.

Former DePaul assistant Tim Anderson will become an assistant for Illinois Basketball. Prior to joining DePaul, Anderson led Ground Zero Training, a program based in Chicago that helped to prepare college players for the NBA Draft and professional players competing in leagues across the globe.Also, prior to that, he was heavily involved in the AAU program as MeanStreets program director.

Also joining the coaching ranks is Chester Frazier. He was a former player in Champaign and captain of the squad for two season and brings enthusiasm youth and understanding of thee program along with continuity.

Illinois Basketball recruiting

• In the latest recruiting , Illinois basketball has offer Parker Friedrichsen a 6’3″ 265 lbs shooter from Bixby, Oklahoma.
• Jayden Epps has committed to play basketball next season at the University of Illinois. From Suffolk, Virginia, he is a 4-star combo guard who is ranked No. 85 on the 2022 ESPN.

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About the author– Tom Knuppel has been writing about baseball and sports for a few decades. As an avid St. Louis Cardinals fan he began with the blog CardinalsGM. Tom is a member of the United Cardinals Bloggers and the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. He also maintains the History of Cardinals website. More recently he has been busy at KnupSolutions and the primary writer of many sports at KnupSports and adds content at Sports 2.0. Tom is a retired High School English and Speech teacher and has completed over one hundred sportsbook reviews. He also can be followed on Twitter at tknup.  Feel free to contact Tom at tknuppel@gmail.com