Illinois Basketball: Antwan January backs away from Illini commitment

The Illinois basketball team didn’t have a great weekend as we lost a member of the family.

Big man commit Antwan January quote retweeted a post by Pamela Green, I am assuming that is his mother, that says he has decided to back away from his commitment to Illinois and look at other programs. This move is one that hurts the Illini depth but doesn’t come as a huge surprise to many fans.

January was a good west coast pickup by Brad Underwood and the Illinois coaching staff. He is a 6-foot-11, 240-pound center from Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, California. He is rated as a three-star recruit who is the No. 162 player in the class of 2019 and the No. 32 center in the nation. He is also the No. 12 player in the state of California as well.

I am curious to see where January ends up playing. He already took official visits to New Mexico on September 24, 2018 and Washington State on October 20, 2018. I would assume he stays more on the west coast rather than coming to the midwest.

Where does this leaving Illinois, though? Well, I had January as a potential redshirt for the Illini this upcoming season. He provides a lot of talent, but we have enough experienced depth right now to save him for another year. So, losing him doesn’t hurt the team like losing Kofi Cockburn would hurt the team.

I also assumed something was going down with the Illini. The coaching staff continues to look at graduate transfer players but we didn’t have a scholarship available. That only meant they knew there was going to be one open soon. That has now happened.

Illinois lost a member of the family on Sunday, but we should be able to recover from it. It is never fun losing a talented player like January. I wish him nothing but the best moving forward, though.