Illinois Basketball: First two years of recruiting is key to success

Lon Kruger

Class of 1996 (1 4-star, 1 3-star)

There was a big transition in 1996 with legendary head coach Lou Henson retiring and Lon Kruger taking over the reins.

In Kruger’s first class, the best player Illinois pulled in was Victor Chukwudebe. It is hard to find exactly how high he was rated because the internet was just starting to heat up. My rough estimate, he was rated as a low four-star recruit.

The other two commitments from Kruger’s first class were Halim Abdullah and Fess Hawkins. Abdullah was a junior college transfer and Hawkins was roughly a three-star recruit.

Class of 1997 (2 5-star, 1 4-star)

The following season, Kruger really hit a home run. This was the class that was going to put everything together in near future.

Sergio McClain and Marcus Griffin were the highlights of the class of 1997. Both were Peoria, Illinois products and from what I have read and researched, they were both five-star recruits as well. Griffin didn’t qualify to get into Illinois, though. He spent a few seasons in junior college and then transferred back to Illinois.

Also in this class was Cory Bradford. He was one of the best guards in the country and I had him pegged as a four-star recruit. I am thinking he would have been top 75 in the class of 2017.

Illinois also had Carvell Ammons walk onto the team from Northwestern, Arias Davis who was a JUCO transfer, Rich Beyers who would transfer out of the program two years later and Awvee Storey who would transfer to Arizona State.