In 2020, the Illinois basketball team will be looking to replenish their point guard depth.
This is one of the reasons why they offered a scholarship to class of 2020 point guard, Nimari Burnett. It was announced on Twitter last night that the Illini extended him an offer according to the Mac Irvin Fire.
#MacIrvinFire 2020 6'3 G Nimari Burnett (Morgan Park) just received offer from Illinois HC Brad Underwood #Illini #BigTen
— Mac Irvin Fire (@TheMacIrvinFire) May 2, 2017
Burnett is a 6-foot-1, 160-pound point guard from Morgan Park High School in Chicago, Illinois. Right now, Illinois is the only one to offer this talented guard, but it is still extremely early in the recruiting process.
Illinois has a history with Morgan Park High School and Burnett’s AAU team Mac Irvin Fire. As of the last few years, the Illini haven’t been able to tap into that high school. There have been a few big-time recruits that have gone elsewhere including most recently, Charlie Moore.
On the AAU circuit, the Illini have also struggled at bringing in the Mac Irvin Fire players. The most recent get for Illinois was Da’Monte Williams and we had the leg up there with his dad being a Fighting Illini all-time great. Besides for him, recruiting has been rough coming out of that AAU program.
But, things could be changing with the Illinois program. Getting some current Mac Irvin Fire players would be big for the Illini. They are currently hot on the trail for guard Ayo Dosunmu and Talen Horton-Tucker. These two players could help the team create a relationship with the program and that would help with the recruitment with Burnett.
Burnett has already emerged onto the scene as a great scorer. He can get his shot whenever he needs to and his ability to shot from anywhere on the floor is a huge benefit.
During the Morgan Park state title run this past season, Burnett was looked to as a leader after Dosunmu went down with an injury. He stepped into that role a freshman and lifted the team to a title game victory. He ended the game with 24 points on 9-of-15 from the field.
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Burnett is clearly a big-time scorer and he is a floor general. This is what Illinois will need in 2020. They started to lay the foundation today to get this talented point guard to Champaign.