1. Derrick Rose
Coming in at No. 1 on the list of the biggest Illinois basketball recruiting misses since the turn of the century was an easy one for me. When you have an elite player like Derrick Rose, you can’t miss on him.
Rose was a 6-foot-4, 194-pound point guard from Chicago. He was rated as a five-star recruit and was the No. 3 player in the class of 2007. Sure, Gordon was a heartbreaker, but if Rose lands with Illinois, everything in program history is changed.
The decision for Rose came down to two schools, Illinois and Memphis. On a podcast, Rose talked about the recruitment. He said that Illinois was recruiting him at the time, and the big reason why Memphis was the landing spot is that John Calipari came and actually visited him. Bruce Weber did not.
This was a heartbreaking thing to hear. If Weber had visited Rose, he might have played for the Illini. Just think about that for a second.
Rose had an incredible freshman season, averaging 14.9 points, 4.7 assists, 4.5 rebounds, and 1.2 steals per game. He led Memphis to the national championship that season, too.
That summer, Rose ended up being the first pick in the 2008 NBA Draft by the Chicago Bulls. He won an MVP in the NBA. This should have been a great story about Rose going to the state school of Illinois and then winning with the Bulls. That wasn’t the case, though.
Rose slipped through the cracks, and it was a painful recruiting loss. I think, at the end of the day, this recruitment sums up what Illinois basketball was between Bill Self and Brad Underwood. A bunch of missed opportunities and letdowns.