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

The class of 2016 isn’t down this low because the talent isn’t there.  The reason that the class of 2016 sits at No. 8 is because there is only one player.

Illinois Fighting Illini

John Groce has been struggling through most of his tenure with the Illini.  One of his big downfalls is that he doesn’t have depth on his teams.

Now, I know that injuries have occurred, but Groce didn’t have the personnel to combat that attrition and that hurt the program.

The fact that there was only one player for the class of 2016 is mind blowing in my opinion.

But, despite there only being one player in this class, that one player is quite good.

Illinois managed to snag point guard Te’Jon Lucas for the class of 2016.

Lucas is a 4-star point guard who is going to be huge for the Illini this upcoming season.

Illinois has been struggling specifically at the point guard position over the last three seasons and getting Lucas into the program will solve that problem.

I expect Lucas to compete for minutes early on in his career and potentially even start a few games.  He has the skill to be great and I want to see those skills develop.

The only reason the class of 2016 is so low on this list is because there was only one player.

Next: No. 7 Recruiting Class