Illinois Basketball: In-state recruiting evaluation of Brad Underwood

Biggest Success

Brad Underwood entered the picture, and he started to deliver with his first recruiting class. The first order of action was landing Ayo Dosunmu.

The last time Illinois landed the top player from the state of Illinois was back in 2010. The Illini secured the commitment of Jereme Richmond, and he was joined by the No. 2 and No. 3 players in the state that year in Meyers Leonard and Crandall Head, respectively.

In Underwood’s first recruiting class, he was able to land Ayo, who was the No. 1 player in the state of Illinois for the class of 2018. He had already done something the previous coaching regime failed to do.

Underwood dipped back into the Morgan Park High School pool and snagged Adam Miller in 2020. He was the No. 2 recruit in the state of Illinois, and some people considered him the best player. He was only a few spots behind DJ Steward that year.

Illinois now has the class of 2022 entering the program. Underwood continued his great in-state recruit by landing the best player in the state of Illinois in Ty Rodgers.

Out of the five recruiting classes Underwood has completed, he has landed the top player in the state of Illinois two times and secured the commitment from the No. 2 player in the state one other time.

I also wanted to mention that the talent level, according to the rankings, has gone down in the state of Illinois as well. There have only been 13 top 100 recruits in the last five classes to come out of the state of Illinois. Underwood has secured three of those 13 recruits.