Momentum continues to sway in favor of Illinois basketball landing one of the top point guards in the transfer portal.
The transfer portal has been a little quiet over the past few days for the Illini. No news has broken for the good or bad. Illinois is currently hosting three big transfer portal players in Carey Booth, Dante Maddox Jr., and Kylan Boswell.
All three are extremely important pieces to the puzzle. If Illinois can land all three transfer portal players, this program is poised to reach great heights in 2024-25.
Boswell seems to be the warmest, though. He entered the transfer portal on April 9. That same day, 247Sports’ National Recruiting Director put in a Crystal Ball Prediction for Illinois to land the talented point guard.
Two days later, Derek Piper of Illinois’ 247Sports page also submitted a Crystal Ball Prediction for the Illini to land Boswell. And now, on Friday, Jason Scheer of the Arizona 247Sports page submitted a prediction. The team he thinks will land Boswell?
Illinois.
Snagging a point guard out of the transfer portal would give the Illinois basketball team something we have been missing for a while
Boswell can do it all on the basketball court. His ability to shoot from three-point range is one of the most intriguing parts of this game. He played against high-level DI talent and still managed to shoot 37.9% from the three-point arc.
Beyond his great shooting, I want Illinois to land Boswell because he brings something to the program that we haven’t had in a while, a great point guard.
I love that Boswell is more of a traditional point guard who can shoot. On top of his great three-point percentage, he also averaged 3.6 assists per game last season.
Marcus Domask averaged 3.9 assists last season, but most of his assists came off of him essentially playing the big-man role. He backed players down, got the double-team, and then passed out to a shooter.
Trent Frazier kind of played the point guard role for Illinois in his last season, as he averaged 4.1 assists per game. But he wasn’t a true point guard. Illinois slotted him in that role, but Frazier was always a No. 2 guard.
The last time Illinois had a true point guard who could average over three assists per game was Andre Curbelo back in 2020-21. We ended up being the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament that year. Hopefully, we can replicate that regular season success.