4. AJ Casey
Illinois has been recruiting AJ Casey since the beginning of his basketball career, and that is why I still include him as an option for the Illini class of 2022.
Casey is a 6-foot-8, 180-pound power forward from Whitney Young High School and resides in Chicago, Illinois. He is rated as a four-star recruit and ranked as the No. 53 player in the class of 2022. He is also the No. 8 power forward in the nation and the best player coming out of Illinois.
Back on August 5, Casey cut his top list down to just eight programs. The eight teams that made the cut included Florida, Marquette, DePaul, Gonzaga, Ohio State, Michigan, Memphis, and Illinois.
As of right now, the only official visit Casey has taken was to Ohio State on June 4. It looks like he has one scheduled to Florida this upcoming weekend as well. So, Florida and Ohio State are in the top five. Who will get the other three official visits?
I think Illinois is still in the running here, but there isn’t a lot of talk about the Illini. I keep seeing other programs getting mentioned around Casey’s recruitment. But I also think that is due to the fact Illinois, and for that matter DePaul, are both local programs. Neither team is getting much publicity when it comes to the Casey sweepstakes.
At the end of the day, I think Illinois will end up being one of the top options for Casey. I think Ohio State is going to be hard to beat, though. They seem like a heavy favorite, in my opinion.