Illinois Basketball: Ranking the Illini Recruiting Classes for the Last Decade

The Illinois basketball class of 2012 was nonexistent.  There was not a single recruit that came into this class and there were multiple reasons for this.

This was a transition year for the Illini.  New AD Mike Thomas came in and turned over the football and basketball head coach.

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With a new head coach, it is hard to get players to come to an unproven commodity.

Illinois was also coming off a 17-15 record the year before.  It wasn’t a “good try” 17-15, though.  This was a meltdown of mass proportions for the Illini.

All of these things didn’t exactly attract players to the program.

But, the major reason why there wasn’t a single recruit for the Illini in 2012 was because they had some good young talent waiting in the wings.

In the class of 2011, the Illini had four 4-star players, a 3-star player, and a 2-star player commit.  This was a big-time recruiting class that was the future of the program.

The lack of recruiting for 2012 not only landed this as the worst recruiting class in the last decade, but it also set the program back multiple years.

Next: No. 9 Recruiting Class