Illinois Basketball: Jalen Coleman-Lands can still be an Illini great

When Jalen Coleman-Lands came into the Illinois basketball program I was excited about his future.

This kid could knock down the three-point shot with ease and it showed on the tapes. He was a talented player that had tremendous upside.

Year one for Coleman-Lands was special despite the team falling flat. He averaged 10.3 points per game, which is a solid clip for a freshman. In fact, he was up there with some of the highest scoring freshmen in Illinois basketball history.

The sophomore campaign for Coleman-Lands didn’t go nearly as well, though. He was making his three-pointers at a rate of 42.2-pecent in year one but that dropped to 38-percent this past season. In addition to that drop off in efficiency, he also only averaged 8 points per game as well.

This was not the progression I expected to see out of Colman-Lands from year one to year two. I really wished he had developed more but there was clearly a breakdown in teaching and that might have attributed to a change at the top.

Brad Underwood is now the leader of this Illinois basketball team. He has a history of developing players like Thomas Walkup at Stephen F. Austin and bringing below average teams to the NCAA tournament in one year like with Oklahoma State.

Underwood was a tremendous hire and he should be able to help Coleman-Lands along with his game. The amount of talent that he has just waiting to come out is exciting, and he is also still on a path to being one of the greatest shooters in the history of the program as well.

If you average the first two seasons Coleman-Lands had, he would finish with 1,260 points for his career. That would rank No. 27 on the list of all-time Illini leading scorers. This would put him right behind Bruce Douglas and right ahead of Mike Tisdale.

But, I expect more out of Coleman-Lands than No. 27. The new offense he will be playing in will shoot more three-point shots and that is his time to shine. So, I don’t expect a dip in points for him this upcoming season. In fact, I expect a pretty big increase.

Coleman-Lands scored 350 points in his freshman season and last year that number dropped to 280 points. I think he can surpass that mark of 350 this season.

Last year, Oklahoma State had their top two three-point shooting players score 576 and 439 points under Underwood. If those two players can put up those numbers, then I think Coleman-Lands can as well.

I averaged out the 576 and 439 to get 507 points for Coleman-Lands next season. This is a realistic number and I think he can hit it with ease.

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So, if Coleman-Lands can manage that number the final two years he is in Champaign, he would finish No. 11 on the all-time Illini scoring list. I think the sky is the limit for him and I can’t wait to see what he can do in the new system that Underwood brings to the table.