Illinois Basketball: Illini offer 2020 shooting guard Matthew Murrell

While the Illinois basketball team continues to work on the class of 2019, they sent out another offer for 2020 on Thursday night.

Matthew Murrell took to Twitter to announce that he has received an offer from the Illini. This is a big offer for 2020 because of where he ranked nationally and how many scholarships he has received over the last few months.

Murrell is a 6-foot-2, 175-pound shooting guard from Whitehaven High School in Memphis, Tennessee. He is rated as a four-star recruit who is the No. 95 player in the class of 2020 and the No. 24 shooting guard in the nation.

Just in the last two months, Murrell has received offers from teams like Florida, Tennessee and Texas A&M to go along with the one from the Illini on Thursday. His list will continue to blow up as time goes on as well. Teams are still focusing on getting their class of 2019 buttoned up still. Just imagine what his offer sheet is going to show a few months from now.

Murrell seems to play a high-energy game with the ability to score in multiple ways. He likes to play above the rim. His ability to get to the hoop and put points on the board is one of his major strengths. His shooting isn’t bad, though. He can step back and shoot from long distance or hit the mid-range jumper. But, this isn’t what he prefers to do. I also like his slashing ability. This enables defenders to collapse on him, so his teammates can get wide open looks.

The recruitment of Murrell is still a long way from being over. He still has two high school seasons and another AAU summer to go before he gets to the college ranks. I hope that Illinois getting in early on his recruitment will pay off at the end. He would be a great one for the Illini to snag for the future.