You’re in. You’re out.
You’re in. You’re out.
You’re in. You’re out.
That’s a brief, but extremely accurate synopsis of Illini basketball recruiting five star prospects this past decade. Jeremiah Tilmon, who Scout ranks as the #18 overall player in the nation, just yesterday re-tweeted his original tweet committing his future to Illini basketball. That’s a very teachable moment, as it strongly reminds us never to read too much into Tweets.
That’s because today, Jeremiah Tilmon posted an Instagram message announcing that he asked for a release from his Illinois National Letter of Intent.ย Illinois has been down this exact same road; many times. The Illini landing a 5-star recruit, then losing him, or seemingly landing a 5-star prospect, but ultimately losing out on him is like Beauty and the Beast, “a tale as old as time.”
Actually it’s more like the Fast and Furious film series- same old story, different year.
You could not make up the shit that Illinois has gone through on the recruiting trail the past half decade if you tried
— FullCountTommy (@FullCountTommy) April 5, 2017
Coincidentally, another edition of that franchise is about to get released. So let’s look at where we’ve been on this path, in order to find out where we might be going. Because past is prologue. If you forget history, you’re doomed to repeat it…pick your epigram on the value of history.
First and foremost though, before we continue….
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/849682237591367682
I cannot stress that enough.
Also, some of you need to calm down right now, so maybe a little comic relief could help? Here’s a pretty good joke about the situation-
And the NCAA investigation of Mizzou begins in 3…2…1
— FullCountTommy (@FullCountTommy) April 5, 2017
Eric Gordon
The 2006 one-and-done at Indiana originally committed to Illinois, and was considered a paradigm of the talent Illinois was now going to sign right off the heels of the 2005 national title game appearance. Then Kelvin Sampson starting recruiting the Indianapolis product. Gordon maintained “I’m still solid with Illinois” publicly, before defecting to Indiana very late in the recruiting cycle.
You already have knowledge of the IU program meltdown that ensued during his freshman year in Bloomington, the only year of college basketball in which he partook.
In the end, the program he signed with went downhill, so despite the vilification he received from Illini nation, what did it really all mean? It means don’t overreact to recruiting news, whether it’s “good” or “bad,” for your team.
Cliff Alexander
What Alexander did with the hat switcheroo trick was of course dumb and immature, but ask yourself this- didn’t we do things like this that were equally stupid and immature at our age? Of course we did! We probably did things worse than that. Also, had he done that same exact stunt but switched hats, you should feel the same away.
If he trolled Kansas, instead of Illinois, it’s still a childish thing to do. In the end though, he may have become an inadvertent hero with it.
No seriously, think about this- that televised decision Alexander held, along with the decisions of Tyus Jones and Jahlil Okafor on the same day at roughly the same time, is the last time we as nation really truly watched one of those things.
There haven’t been any more over-hyped Lebron “The Decision” style reality TV specials with college recruits since then. At least there haven’t been any that received mainstream popular attention. That’s a very good thing! We don’t need those kinds of programs in our life, they are very unhealthy. Lebron himself admitted that his was a mistake. Maybe Alexander ended up teaching all of us an important lesson.
Getting back to on-the-court matters, Alexander’s college basketball career went nowhere at Kansas, it was plagued by NCAA investigation and injuries, and he was also one-and-done to the NBA.
This tweet aged well…… https://t.co/t0xHWAnSEU
— FullCountTommy (@FullCountTommy) April 5, 2017
In the words of Gloria Estefan, “here we are, once again.” Tilmon has drawn a lot of Alexander comparisons today, and only time will tell if those analogies are spot on or not. It’s up to him to decide his future, and to define what that future will be. So just be patient, leave him alone and let him find his own way. The nation’s top recruit, Eric Porter Jr., defected from Washington when they fired Lorenzo Romar and signed with Missouri when they hired Cuonzo Martin.
Porter is openly recruiting Tilmon, and if he doesn’t go to Mizzou, there’s a lot of chatter about UNC.
To be fair, Illini basketball Twitter is taking this a whole lot better than I expected. That’s probably because Tilmon’s de-commitment/opening up his recruiting is somewhat expected.
Tilmon asked to be released from his NLI. A calmer response from #Illini twitter than I expected, or maybe I just follow the right people.
— The Tomfoolery of Professor John Frink (@Frustrated_Fan) April 5, 2017
The Jeremiah Tilmon news is actually a bit expected as he once already showed ambivalence about signing his Illinois LOI in November.
Of course, most of us have forgotten Tilmon did that because the news of it broke at the exact same time 2016 presidential election results were being announced and that’s a slightly bigger news story. Just a smidge.
Paul M. Banks runsย The Sports Bank.net, partnered withย FOX Sports Engage Network.ย andย News Now.ย Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times and Bold,ย contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribuneโs RedEyeย publication, CGTN America, WGN CLTV News and KOZN.ย
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