1. James Brown
I think the biggest target, and everyone would probably agree at this point, is James Brown. He is someone who could really help the Illinois basketball frontcourt.
Brown is a 6-foot-9, 210-pound center from St. Rita High School in Chicago, Illinois. He is rated as a four-star recruit and ranked as the No. 27 player in the class of 2024. He is also the No. 5 center in the country and the best player coming out of Illinois.
If you haven’t realized already, Brad Underwood and his coaching staff have targeted St. Rita as the go-to high school for 2024. We have landed Morez Johnson for 2024, who is from St. Rita. Nojus Indrusaitis, mentioned in the first slide, is also from St. Rita. Landing Brown to go along with those two would give Illinois a trio of great talent from the same high school.
Brown’s recruitment is definitely coming down to the end, though. He has scheduled all five of his official visits. He has already visited Missouri, Michigan State, and North Carolina. Notre Dame is next on his list this weekend. The final official visit will be to Illinois on November 4.
I firmly believe Illinois is in the driver’s seat right now. We have been recruiting Brown extremely hard over the past year or so. He has taken multiple unofficial visits to Champaign. We have his high school teammate already committed. And we have the final official visit. It just seems that everything is coming together.
Landing Brown would give Illinois two top 50 recruits committed for 2024. This would give us the top recruiting class in the nation. The 2024 class is going to be special.