Illinois Basketball: Top 5 underrated Illini recruits of the past decade

3. Alan Griffin

It was extremely difficult to not put Alan Griffin up as the No. 1 most underrated recruit for the Illini in the past decade. I ended up putting him at No. 3, but he could easily have been higher.

Griffin entered college as a 6-foot-5, 180-pound shooting guard from Archbishop Stepinac High School and resided in White Plains, New York. He was rated as a three-star recruit who was the No. 185 player in the class of 2018 and the No. 41 shooting guard in the nation. He was also the No. 4 player in the state of New York.

I expect some contributions out of a top 200 player. They usually see limited minutes off the bench and aren’t more than a minutes speller for the starters. But that was the complete opposite with Griffin.

As a freshman, Griffin didn’t see the court much and only averaged 2.8 points per game. His time would increase greatly, and Illinois started winning more with Griffin getting more time on the court. He ended up finishing his sophomore season averaging 8.9 points and 4.5 rebounds per game in just 18.1 minutes of action per game.

I know there were times where I was clamoring for Griffin to start more frequently last season. But that didn’t happen because Illinois had a good thing going. He was a sparkplug off the bench.

Sadly, Griffin needed more of the spotlight. He decided to transfer and picked Syracuse as his landing spot. The Orangemen are getting a great player in Griffin. He is going to light up the scoreboard.

Griffin is nowhere near a sub-150 player. Honestly, I think this kid was more of a player in between No. 50 and No. 70 in the class of 2018. He was a steal for the Illini.