Thursday night was pretty big for the Illinois basketball program. The fact the Illini snagged five-star guard Ayo Dosunmu for the future is huge for the team.
Dosunmu is a great player but he is going to need more talent around him as well. Illinois has two more scholarships to fill for 2018, and they have one big-time recruit visiting this weekend.
Talen Horton-Tucker is currently in Champaign visiting with Brad Underwood, the coaching staff and the campus. He is trying to find a place where he feels comfortable and where he can excel on the basketball court. Hopefully, Illinois can make a good enough pitch to get him to commit.
Illinois could use him in 2018 and beyond. He is a 6-foot-5 combo-wing player. I could see him playing out on the perimeter at times but he also has a big body where he can go into the post as well. I really love how he is a bulldog type of player. He can drive the lane and take a hit and get right back up and do it again. That is the type of player I want in Champaign.
But, getting Horton-Tucker to come to Illinois isn’t going to be an easy task. I feel like Iowa State is probably the leader right now but having a guard to play with like Dosunmu has to be enticing for Horton-Tucker. He can feed off Dosunmu and really be a star in the Orange and Blue.
Not only will Horton-Tucker be a star, but he can also continue helping the Illini take back control of in-state recruiting as well. Illinois currently has Dosunmu committed, who is the No. 1 player in the state of Illinois. Horton-Tucker is the No. 2 player in the state and if the Illini can get him, that would be the first time the top two in-state players picked Illinois since 2010. That was the year Meyers Leonard and Jereme Richmond committed who was the No. 31 and 35 players in the nation, respectively.
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So, the Illini have more at stake this weekend then they have had in a while. Illinois needs a player like Horton-Tucker because he is talented but they also need him because they need to take control of in-state recruiting. The future is bright for this program and getting Horton-Tucker would be another step in the right direction.