Top 10 Illinois basketball recruiting busts of all time

Special talent has walked the State Farm Center floor, but the Illinois basketball team has also had some pretty big recruiting busts of the years.

Mar 17, 2022; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Illinois Fighting Illini guard Andre Curbelo (5) and Fighting Illini guard Alfonso Plummer (11) stand on the court during practice before the first round of the 2022 NCAA Tournament at PPG Paints Arena. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports / Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

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No. 4 Mike Shaw

Another great recruiting class followed the highly-anticipated 2010 class. That class was in 2011 with five top-100 recruits. The leader of the pack was Mike Shaw.

Shaw was a 6-foot-8, 213-pound small forward from De La Salle Institute in Illinois. He was rated as a four-star recruit and ranked as the No. 65 player in the class of 2011. He was also the No. 13 small forward in the country and the No. 7 player coming out of Illinois.

Illinois was Shaw’s landing spot, and the potential seemed to be there. He had a nice big body and a lot of talent. That talent never translated to the court, though.

Shaw spent two seasons at Illinois. He failed to average 1.0 points per game in either season. During his time in Champaign, Shaw averaged 0.9 points and 1.4 rebounds per contest. After Bruce Weber was let go, Shaw decided to enter the transfer portal.

After sitting out a season, Shaw landed with Bradley. He spent his final two seasons with the Braves where he averaged 2.5 points and 3.3 rebounds per contest.

A top-100 recruit should be much more productive than Shaw ended up being for either program. He definitely earned his spot in the top five on this list.

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