David Mirkovic on the cusp of rare Illinois basketball preseason hype

Greatness hasn’t eluded the history of the Illinois basketball program.

Plenty of talented players have come through Champaign. Only three have earned the tag of first-team All-American in the last 40 years: Kofi Cockburn in 2022, Ayo Dosunmu in 2021, and Dee Brown in 2005. That is it; that is the list.

You can almost say the same for preseason All-American honors. In the last 40 years, only Frank Williams in 2001-02, Brown in 2005-06, Dosunmu in 2020-21, and Cockburn in 2021-22 have earned preseason All-American honors. Could David Mirkovic be next?

247Sports’ podcast, The Assist, put out a preseason All-American team on Wednesday. On that team are Jeremy Fears Jr., Tyler Tanner, Thomas Haugh, Tyran Stokes, and, yes, David Mirkovic.

This got me thinking: could Mirkovic really be an AP preseason All-American? That would be a pretty special club, considering only four players from Illinois have earned that honor over the last 40 years.

After his freshman campaign, it doesn’t shock me that Mirkovic is looked at as one of the best players in the college game.

If it weren’t for Keaton Wagler’s great first year, Mirkovic would have earned a lot more shine. At 6-foot-9, he averaged 13.3 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 2.6 assists per game. Not to mention, Mirkovic shot 37.5% from three-point range on 4.1 attempts per game, and he could play every position on the court.

Analytics say that David Mirkovic might have an uphill climb to get Illinois basketball another preseason All-American

I think Mirkovic has a chance to win the John R. Wooden Award for the best player in college basketball. I look at him as a mini version of Nikola Jokic.

With that being said, analytics say he isn’t quite one of the top five players in the game.

According to EvanMiya.com, Mirkovic sits at No. 12 overall right now. He has a Bayesian Performance Rating (BPR) of 8.63. That is a number that is derived from his offensive BPR and defensive BPR, which both are metrics calculated from various numbers the website puts together.

That 8.63 rating is solid and ranks him No. 12. The other four on The Assist preseason All-American list are Fears at No. 1, Tanner at No. 2, Haugh at No. 6, and Stokes, who ranks No. 32, but I am not sure how you can quantify a true freshman before he plays a game.

I believe Illinois is one of the best teams in the country and should be one of the favorites to win it all. We also have one of the best players in the nation in Mirkovic. Will he be an AP preseason All-American? Let’s see if something rare happens in the coming weeks and Illinois gets another name on the prestigious list.

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