The Illinois basketball team has to rebuild some of their depth after this past week saw a couple of transfers.
The least impactful transfer was Tevian Jones. He was a wing player for the Illini and was someone who had potential but never was able to live up to it while in Champaign. He would have provided some depth for the program at the No. 3 or No. 4 spots next season. But he has now departed the program. Out of a scale of 1-10 – 1 being doesn’t hurt at all and 10 being catastrophic to the team – Jones was a 2. We should be okay without him.
Alan Griffin was the other transfer this past week for Illinois. This one hurt way worse than the Jones transfer. Griffin averaged 8.9 points and 4.5 rebounds per game this past season off the bench. It is going to be hard to find a replacement for him. I would say losing him is a 6.5 on the scale of 1-10.
Despite losing both of these players, Illinois does have a couple of transfers who are eligible to play this upcoming season. Jacob Grandison and Austin Hutcherson should give us some quality depth. I also like the incoming freshman class. The three players coming in should provide starting and bench play for the Illini.
Let me also remind you, this projected lineup is based on Ayo Dosunmu departing the program too. So, we would have two open scholarships to fill if that happens.
Here is the projected Illini lineup without Alan Griffin and Tevian Jones.