The Illinois basketball team is in the middle of quite a few recruiting battles.
Last night, Mark Alstork cut his list down to six programs he will be deciding from and kept the Illini alive.
Alstork is a 6-foot-5, 190-pound graduate transfer from Wright State. He is a player that is highly wanted but only six teams are now in the running for his services. His list now includes Pittsburgh, South Carolina, Louisville, LSU, Georgetown and Illinois.
Final 6? #Pitt #GeorgeTown #Illinois #SouthCarolina #LSU #Louisville 🙏🏽😊! Wya Fans! #Comment What Y'all Think? 👀👂🏽 pic.twitter.com/0gciVfCi6v
— Mark Alstork (@Mark_Alstork) May 4, 2017
During his college career, Alstork has been with multiple programs. He committed to play for Ball State coming out of the class of 2013 as a two-star recruit. He played one season with the Cardinals where he averaged 22.6 minutes, 5.6 points and 3.1 rebounds per game.
After one season with Ball State, Alstork decided to transfer. He ended up landing with Wright State and after sitting out a season he shined. He averaged 26.6 minutes, 12.4 points and 4.7 rebounds per game in his first year with the Raiders.
Last season was even better for Alstork. He took his game to another level and averaged 30.2 minutes, 19 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game. He really increased the ball movement aspect of his game and that will look better for him as a player.
Alstork was done at Wright State after two seasons and was either going to go to the NBA or be a graduate transfer. He declared for the NBA Draft but didn’t hire an agent so he could come back if things weren’t going as planned. He also received his release from Wright State as well just in case the NBA route didn’t work.
Well, it now looks like Alstork is going to select between six teams and it is exciting to have the Illini involved. But, many people are probably wondering why the Illini need another guard when they already have some coming in for 2017.
Here is my thought on adding a player like Alstork. He is going to be gone after this upcoming season. He isn’t going to take up a scholarship for 2018, so there is no risk to having him come aboard.
Alstork is also a really good player who can put up points at a high clip and he can also rebound and distribute the ball as well. Those are all needed on this team and I welcome that completely.
But, the biggest reason I would be excited to have Alstork come aboard is to give Da’Monte Williams time to rest and recover from a torn ACL he suffered back in December of 2016. He would even give Underwood the option to potentially redshirt Williams for his freshman campaign.
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What Alstork brings is options for Underwood. That is huge for this program and something we haven’t had in years. I am all in favor of bringing in Alstork and his playmaking abilities. The future is extremely bright for this program if he does commit.