Illinois Basketball: Illini offer scholarship to SF Zed Key

The Illinois basketball team hit the recruiting trail on Tuesday morning as they started pursuing a recruit for the class of 2020.

Jake Weingarten of Stockrisers tweeted out that Illinois has extended a scholarship offer to Zed Key. This is an interesting offer by the Illini and one that could pay dividends in the future.

Key is a 6-foot-8, 180-pound small forward from Long Island Lutheran High School in Glen Head, New York. He is rated as a four-star recruit who is the No. 116 player in the class of 2020 and the No. 22 small forward in the nation. He is also the No. 5 player in the state of New York as well.

Illinois wasn’t the first team to get to Key. He currently holds roughly 16 scholarship offers which include the likes of Cincinnati, Florida and Penn State. Illinois getting in on this kids recruitment is probably a good idea considering they could always use more size in and around the hoop.

There isn’t a lot on Key right now. It looks like he will likely be suiting up for the New York Jayhawks AAU team this summer. This will get him some good experience heading into his senior year of basketball at Long Island Lutheran.

From what I have seen, Key looks like a pretty good player. He is ranked well with a lot of scholarship offers already. Judging by his offers, his ranking seems to probably be about right. I do like his game as well.

Key isn’t really an outside the arc type of player. It looks like he likes to stay around the hoop most of the time. He can use his body, which is built well, to get position and score the basketball. The way he moves, uses his body and plays reminds me of Charles Barkley. I am sure someone will come at me on Twitter saying I think this kid will be Barkley. That isn’t what I am saying. His style and size reminds me of how Barkley played.

I like this offer by Illinois. They are working the state of New York well. Let’s get in on Key’s recruitment and continue building this program.