Illinois Basketball: Former Illini Leron Black enters the coaching ranks

More former Illinois basketball players are starting to dip their toes into the coaching waters.

Illini fans were able to cheer on former forward Brian Randle in the NBA Finals this year. Randle has been coaching in the NBA for quite some time and is currently an assistant coach with the Phoenix Suns. Now we have another former player trying to get into the coaching game with Leron Black.

David Jablonski of the Dayton Daily News posted on his Twitter page that the Dayton Flyers have two new graduate assistants on the team. Tyler Carter was one of the names he dropped and the other was Leron Black.

Black’s development with the Illinois basketball team should help him in the coaching world.

If you would have said in 2015 that Black would be helping with a college basketball program as some type of coach, I would not have taken you seriously.

Black wasn’t developing much as a player, and he had some off-the-court issues that were serious of nature. But he really got his stuff together in his final year with the Illini. He was able to correct some things off the court and was able to shine on it. He ended up averaging 15.3 points and 5.2 rebounds per game in his final run with the program.

I think coaching could be a good route for Black to go down in his professional career. He knows the game and knows what it takes to develop his game. He’s also had some life experiences. These experiences can help with teaching younger kids the rights and wrongs and what to do with your time on and off the court.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see Black really help Dayton on a lower level. He could easily work his way up in the college basketball world to a point he could end up being an assistant coach in a few years. Just look at the progression of Roger Powell as an assistant coach. I am excited to see how Black’s career develops.