Illinois Basketball: Decision looming for Illini target Bryce Hopkins

It looks like a decision is coming soon for Illinois basketball target Bryce Hopkins.

The recruitment of Hopkins has been a roller coaster, to say the least. Once committed to the Louisville Cardinals, the star Fenwick forward backed away from that pledge in August and has had a tremendous amount of recruiting attention ever since.

Waves of new offers came in for Hopkins, but he decided to cut his list down to nine programs on August 30. Since then, a few teams have had virtual Zoom calls. The main programs to stick out include Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois and some say Providence.

Just this past week, Hopkins did another Zoom call with Brad Underwood and the Illini. He also had one with Indiana. It is now time for him to make a decision, though.

On Sunday, Jake Weingarten of Stockrisers reported that Hopkins will indeed be making his final decision this week. The date is undetermined, but there is a chance he pulls the trigger today, October 20.

247Sports has Kentucky as the clear leader for Hopkins. Just about every “expert” is popping out of the woodwork to put a prediction in for him. With that many people saying Hopkins is going to the Wildcats, they probably aren’t wrong.

But this recruitment isn’t over until Hopkins says it is over. Illinois isn’t out of the running yet. They have had multiple Zoom calls with Hopkins. We all know how good Coach Underwood and his staff are at landing big-time players from the state of Illinois. Just ask Ayo Dosunmu and Adam Miller why they came to Champaign.

Will Illinois win this one? They probably won’t considering there is so much momentum in Kentucky’s favor. But would it shock me to see the Illini win out? No, it wouldn’t shock me. Illinois’ coaching staff has done wonders with this program. Hopkins would be one of the big pieces to the championship puzzle.