Illinois Basketball: Ranking the last 10 recruiting classes

Dec 21, 2016; St. Louis, MO, USA; The Illinois Fighting Illini cheerleaders run on the court before a basketball game against the Missouri Tigers at Scottrade Center. Illinois won 75-66. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
Dec 21, 2016; St. Louis, MO, USA; The Illinois Fighting Illini cheerleaders run on the court before a basketball game against the Missouri Tigers at Scottrade Center. Illinois won 75-66. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports /
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Illinois basketball
Dec 21, 2016; St. Louis, MO, USA; The Illinois Fighting Illini cheerleaders run on the court before a basketball game against the Missouri Tigers at Scottrade Center. Illinois won 75-66. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports /

The Illinois basketball team produced some pretty great recruiting classes over the years.

These classes consisted of some players who were highly rated and some who weren’t rated at all. And then there were some who were right in the middle and could go either way as far as talent on the basketball court is concerned.

I am not judging these recruiting classes on how they performed on the court for the Illini or if they made it to the NBA or not. I am solely basing these rankings on the recruiting services of Scout and how I value recruiting classes.

Some of the classes on this list have really helped the program reach the NCAA tournament and see success on the basketball court.

But, there are also other classes who came in with a ton of talent only to disappoint the fan base on the court with either bad play or players who transferred out of the program.

Despite the final results of these classes, the beginning is what matters to me. How these classes were perceived coming into the program and the possibilities of how good the teams could be.

Here are the rankings of the last ten Illinois basketball recruiting classes.