Take a look at Langston Love’s top 11, which includes the Illinois basketball team and other Power 5 contenders.
Love has quickly become one of the premier players in the class of 2021. The 6-foot-4 shooting guard hails from Montverde Academy in Montverde, Florida. Love released his top 11 schools on Instagram last week, sparking buzz and interest in a potential landing spot.
Outside of Illinois, schools such as Stanford, Kansas, UCLA, Texas, Oklahoma State, Villanova, Texas A&M, Baylor, Texas Tech, and Arkansas have shown interest in recruiting the No. 23 prospect from the class of 2021.
Love is a four-star recruit with a high-level free throw percentage and the ability to rebound the basketball efficiently. He could play a similar role to Alan Griffin, who showed resilience and toughness at the defensive end during various points of last season.
Love has also demonstrated his ability to score, despite it not being his most important strength on the floor. Through his first two years of high school basketball, the Texas native averaged 19.5 points and 6.8 rebounds per game, as Love’s team went undefeated in 2019.
If Love comes to Illinois, he would join Indiana native Luke Goode in the class of 2021, and Illinois native Adam Miller, New York’s Andre Curbelo, and California’s Coleman Hawkins from the class of 2020. Each piece would bring a dynamic skill set that could continue to propel Illinois into one of the nation’s best teams, including one of the top teams in the Big Ten. The Illini look to build off of a second-place finish from 2019, in which they had a nine-game turnaround.
“I did not really realize that [I could be playing high-level basketball] until about at the end of my freshman year,” Love told Front Office Gurus. “That was when I really realized that I could do it. After I was playing in an unknown circuit, at the end of that summer, that was when I realized high-level Division 1 basketball. [I transferred to Montverde] last year.”
dark. Next. Class of 2021 has potential to be special for Illini
Love’s transition from Florida to Texas should be one to watch as he enters his senior season this fall.