No. 4 Bryce Heard
The state of Illinois is producing some great talent for the class of 2025. I already mentioned Phoenix Gill, and a good guard who could join Gill in Champaign would be Bryce Heard.
Heard is a 6-foot-5, 187-pound shooting guard from Montverde Academy but resides in Illinois. He is rated as a four-star recruit and ranked as the No. 62 player in the class of 2025. He is also the No. 10 combo guard in the country and the No. 9 player coming out of Illinois.
Over the past year, Heard has started to rack up the scholarship offers. Besides for the Illini, he has teams like Oklahoma, Arizona State, and Kansas State all vying for his services. Illinois was his first offer, though.
Illinois has been recruiting Heard for quite some time too. We offered him a scholarship back in 2021, and then in August 2022, Heard took an unofficial visit to Champaign.
Landing someone like Heard would be big for the Illini. While Heard currently attends Montverde Academy, he is from Chicago. Building that recruiting connection to Chicago is always important.
Brad Underwood needs to continue to land deep and talented classes as well. Heard would help provide quality depth to what could be a top 10 class nationally in 2025.