The Illinois basketball season did not turn out the way anyone had wanted it to, as we are out of the NCAA tournament in the first weekend.
You could feel the Illini floundering mid-season. Injuries and illness kicked off the rough run, and it was capped off by a disappointing loss in the second round of the Big Dance.
While this tough season had a lot of bad spots, there were a few good things that happened throughout the course of those few months. The emergence of Morez Johnson Jr. was one of the bright spots.
Johnson’s presence, his energy, his drive, his grit, are things that the Illinois fanbase could glom on to. We could rally behind someone like Johnson because he did the little things and the unflashy things that aren’t necessarily going to get you a ton of screen time.
The season ended, and in the course of a few days, the transfer portal opened. Everyone knew that the transfer portal could rear its ugly head. To me, there was always one player who I thought wouldn’t transfer. That was Johnson.
Now, transferring after his sophomore season, if things weren’t going well, would have been understandable. But, in my opinion, there was no way Johnson was going to be a one-and-done at Illinois.
My rationale for this thought was that Johnson wasn’t a late commitment to Illinois. This kid was a member of the class of 2024. Remember that, 2024. Johnson committed to Illinois back in November 2021. For three entire high school seasons, Johnson remained committed to Brad Underwood and the Illini. This is a rarity back in the old days, but it is like seeing a unicorn and a pig flying around the sky nowadays. It never happens.
Being committed to Illinois for three years, and then spending an entire season with the program, I thought there was no way he was departing. Boy howdy, was I wrong. I thought it was a sure thing that Johnson was coming back, but not only is he not coming back to Illinois, he was the first player in the program who averaged over 1.2 points per game to leave the team.
If Morez Johnson Jr. is leaving Illinois basketball for the transfer portal, anything could happen in the coming weeks
I swung and missed on my opinion about what was going to happen with Johnson. Now that he is gone, it is getting me to think, no one is safe at this point.
I mean, if Johnson, a player who has been with the program for essentially four years, decides to leave, then why would the other players stay? What is the point of staying? Someone is going to come with a bag of money and dump it in their lap.
Johnson is gone. At this point, it wouldn’t shock me to see every other Illinois player enter the transfer portal, too. Is it really going to be every season that Illinois has a completely different team? Let me tell you, that is zero fun from this fan’s perspective. I have zero connection to any of the players, and that is killing the game for me. Hopefully, we will get to see some of the usual faces in Orange and Blue next season.
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