I know – an awful thing to say.  Michael Orris will work tremendously hard over the next 5 years to make his dream of playing Big Ten basketball a reality, and here I am, already pushing him aside and focusing on our shiny new top-100 recruit.

Such is the life of a hoops recruiting junkie.  Everything is so black and white.  If you’re ranked, and especially if you’re RSCI ranked, you’re going to be a star – no question about it.  I mean, there’s no chance an Alex Legion would flame out.  He’s #36 on the RSCI!

Same for unranked kids.  Luther Head has no chance of college basketball success – he’s not in the RSCI.   Nor does Cory Bradford or Trent Meacham or the Johnson brothers.  Ranked = good; unranked = bad.  Black and white.

But here’s the thing – I still can’t abandon looking at rankings and only rankings when it comes to basketball recruiting.  The main reason we’ve lost 70 games in the last 5 years is because Bruce Weber’s first 5 classes included only three consensus top-100 recruits (Pruitt, Carlwell, and McCamey).  We couldn’t match the talent of Ohio State and Michigan State, so we couldn’t beat them.  Bill Self, on the other hand, was successful mostly because Lon brought in Serge-Marcus-Frankie and he brought in Deron-Dee-Augie.  Recruiting is the lifeblood.  There’s a reason Northwestern has never been to the NCAA tournament, and it ain’t coaching.

So when I see us take a flyer on Michael Orris, I raise an eyebrow.  And when I see us get a verbal from Malcolm Hill, I fist pump like a champ.  Hill is #50 on Rivals, #58 on ESPN, and #69 on Scout.  More importantly, he’s a shooting guard/wing to pair with all of the point guards we’ve been accumulating.  That’s important, because after the DJ-BP3 class and the Leonard-Head class leave, here’s what we’re left with:

PG: Abrams
PG: Orris
PG: James
2G: Hill
2G/WF: Langford
SF: Henry
PF: Shaw
C: Egwu
C: Djimde

So if you ask me, the next 4 scholarships (1 in 2013, 3 in 2014) need to go to a pure shooter, a true small forward, a 3/4 hybrid wing forward/power forward, and a banger power forward/center. Or, better yet, just give Jabari Parker all four scholarships, because I think he can play all of those positions.

I’ll be curious to see how Hill develops as a shooter.  ESPN recruiting analyst Reggie Rankin (do his friends call him Rankin’ Reggie?) describes Malcolm Hill as “a true shooting guard with a great upside”. If he’s a true shooting guard, that’s great, because future teams will need a shooter. But many other evaluations of Hill list his strengths as “getting to the basket” and “going to his left”, and one evaluation said he projected more as a wing than a shooting guard. If he’s not our shooter, then we need to find one in the 2014 class.

Something else that might interest only me: he’s our first recruit from the Metro-East since Richard Keene in 1992. The second largest population base in Illinois outside of Chicagoland is the Metro-East (Illinois side of the St. Louis area, and birthplace of yours truly) with 550,000 people in Madison and St. Clair counties. Yet even though it’s an area more than twice the size of Peoria, the Metro-East has only produced 3 consensus top-100 players in the last 20 years (Keene, Darius Miles, and now, most likely, Malcolm Hill). The bad news: 3 in 20 years is a poor showing for the Metro-East. The good news: 100% of the consensus top-100 players from the Metro-East who played college ball in the last 20 years did so at the University of Illinois.

One last thing: we’re down to one “available” scholarship for the 2013 class.  But several of you have convinced me – I’m on board now with acting like we have two.  Go get Tommie Hamilton, and after you do, continue to dream of Jabari Parker.  If by some strange stroke of luck you land Parker, simply find a scholarship somewhere (either by someone leaving early to the NBA or someone leaving early to transfer).  He just might be worth it.

That’s the box I’m going to put this Jalen James commitment in.  We needed a point guard, and we needed to get the ball rolling with the 2013 class, and we accomplished both.

James is no slouch, mind you – Rivals has him as a 4-star and ranks him #78 in their 2013 rankings.  A point guard ranked in the 70′s – that’s McCamey-land.  But as poor as the 2012 class in Illinois appears to be, the 2013 class is just the opposite.  No less than 5 players from Illinois in the top 40 in Rivals’ current rankings, with Jabari Parker and Tommy Hamilton leading the way.  Getting top-100 guys is great – getting top-40 guys is what sends you deep into the tournament.

Which is why I’m quantifying this as a solid start.  No matter what, the 2013 recruiting class had to have a point guard, and that’s done.  But there’s much more work to do if we want to catch recruiting machines like Thad Matta (and, of late, Coach Clappy at IU).

So that’s where I see this commitment.  If we can surround James with a Tommy Hamilton and a Malcolm Hill, we’re continuing our climb back towards deep tournament runs.  If James gets no more (talented) help in this class, we’ll fall further behind.

Man, I’m being completely unfair, aren’t I?  This kid verbals to his dream school an hour after getting an offer, and here I am, looking past him already, pounding my fist on the table and demanding McDonald’s All Americans.  Here’s a recruit that might be one of the top-10 players that Bruce Weber has brought in during his 8-going-on-9 years in Champaign (nine years? really?), and I’m all “that’s nice, but…” What is wrong with me?

Don’t answer that.  I know what it is.  It’s 70 losses in the last 5 seasons.  It’s 4 home losses from 1999/2000 to 2005/2006… and then 20 home losses since.  It’s watching Ohio State ascend to the throne that’s rightfully ours.

So I apologize, Mr. James.  I shouldn’t let my basketball petulance get in the way of your big day.  Welcome to the orange and blue.  May you be a key piece to the teams that return Illini basketball to its rightful place at the top.

And please bring Tommy Hamilton with you.

One more thing.  This commitment makes me feel old.  I don’t know why, but the fact that James will arrive on campus after DJ and BP3 graduate makes me think it’s 2019 for some reason.  After DJ is gone?  I swear he’s still a freshman.

And this makes me feel older.  I remember specific players from the early 80′s, but my first true memory of an Illini basketball game was the Braggin’ Rights game in 1983.  Bruce Douglas, Efrem Winters, Big George Montgomery, Doug Altenberger – that team.  That was 1983.  When Jalen James puts on the Orange and Blue and takes on Missouri in St. Louis as a freshman, it will be 30 years after the Douglas/Altenberger/Winters team.  Thirty years.  I need a moment.

And a national championship.

Now, it’s 7.

Huntington Prep big man Ibrahima Djimde picked Illinois over Old Dominion today, becoming the seventh member of this signing class.  One transfer (Sam Maniscalco) and six freshmen (Tracy Abrams, Nnanna Egwu, Micheal Henry, Mike Shaw, Devin Langford, and Ibby Djimde).  The first day practice this fall, the new guys will outnumber the returnees. This is not a positive development.

For some reason, it wasn’t until today – specifically, the moment I realized the players may have to wear name tags for the first team meeting – that I fully grasped just how inexperienced we’ll be next year.  Here’s our returning points per game:

Paul 9.0
Richardson 8.4
Leonard 2.1
Griffey 1.6
Head 1.4
Bertrand 1.1

Wow. Yikes. How did I not realize this before? We have only 6 returning players (4 who only played spot minutes), and here I am going around telling people we’ll likely finish with a record better than last year’s 20-14. For that to happen, this class might need to be the most Big Ten-ready recruiting class since Deron, Dee, and Augie. I like this class – quite a bit, actually – but they have a long way to go to be Deron, Dee, and Augie.

OK, where was I? Yes, Ibby Djimde picks Illinois. I think it says two things:

1) The staff thinks they need help immediately.

There are 80 minutes to be had at the 4 and the 5 next winter.  And we just lost Mike Davis (33 mpg), Mike Tisdale (26 mpg), and Jereme Richmond (22 mpg).  The next bigs in line, Meyers Leonard and Tyler Griffey, will likely take the largest share of those available minutes.  But with foul trouble and such, I doubt they’ll take Davis and Tisdale’s 59 minutes per game.  I’ll say more like 48 minutes per game.

So before today’s verbal commitment, that left 32 minutes per game to be divided between Mike Shaw and Nnanna Egwu.  My guess as to why Ibby Djimde is joining this program now (instead of rolling the scholarship to 2012 and pursuing a wide variety of bigs that are still available) is because the staff doesn’t think Shaw and Egwu are ready for 32 minutes per game.

In an ideal situation, bigs, like offensive linemen, are brought along slowly.  Tyler Griffey had 2 years and Meyers Leonard had one to get their feet wet.  Between them, they averaged 14 minutes per game.  Next winter, we’ll be looking at our inexperienced bigs to provide twice that.  And, if Griffey or Leonard struggle as starters, even more than that.

My point: when Richmond left, we realized we really needed a fifth big for the rotation.  With 95% of 2011 recruits signed and sealed at that point, we had to get creative and search for overlooked projects.  Ibrahima Djimde is that project.  Hope it works.

2) The staff wasn’t as high on Dejuan Marrero as I thought they were.

Of all the players in the very deep class of 2012 recruits in Indiana, Dejuan Marrero seems to be the one most interested in Illinois.  I may be alone in this, but from the description of his game (6′-5″ forward who likes to rebound and do the dirty work), I pictured a Roger Powell-like player.  And from all of his quotes on various recruiting sites, he seemed very interested in Illinois.

But with today’s commitment from Djimde, it appears that ‘ship has sailed.  With (now) 5 forwards on the roster and a large number of wing guards, I’d say there’s a 90% chance our one 2012 scholarship will be used on a point guard.  That 2012 scholarship is being used on Sam Maniscalco for one year, and when it comes open again, I think they have to look point guard.  Which means no room for Marrero.

I had thought Marrero was a top target – a “we’ll keep a spot open for you” target.  But apparently, the need for a big this winter trumped the need to hold a spot for Marerro (or another top 2012 target).  I’m surprised.

By the way, did I mention we’re woefully inexperienced next winter?  Like, only two players who averaged more than 3 points per game inexperienced?  Oh, you already realized that?

For me, it took today’s commitment to realize it.

As to the second point, here’s some research I did the other night. Using the class rankings from Rivals.com, only 6 schools have brought in top-25 classes in 2009, 2010, and 2011. (I’m leaving 2008 out of this because many of the top players and top classes have already been hit with early entries.)

Kentucky (1, 1, and 1)
UNC (5, 4, and 2)
Texas (2, 8, and 5)
Duke (8, 10, and 9)
Illinois (14, 13, and 8*) *Certain to move up with Shaw.
Florida (15, 19, and 13)

Only 11 schools even had two top-25 classes over those 3 years. Of those, due to two top-end classes, I’d probably say that Ohio State (#3 in 2010, #11 in 2011) is ahead of us cumulative-talent-wise.  Syracuse is close.

Stringing classes together is the key. And we’ve done that. When you look at all of the college basketball rosters a year from today, we’re easily in the top-10 in talent and depth. I’d put us 6th, behind Kentucky, UNC, Duke, Texas, and Ohio State, just edging out Syracuse and Michigan State with Florida and Villanova rounding out the Top 10.

Let’s look at that another way.

The roster 2 years ago, with RSCI ranking for each player:

Calvin Brock (NR)
Bill Cole (NR)
Mike Davis (NR)
Chester Frazier (NR)
CJ Jackson (NR)
Jeff Jordan (NR)
Dominique Keller (NR)
Alex Legion (36)
Demetri McCamey (71)
Trent Meacham (NR)
Richard Semrau (NR)
Stan Simpson (NR)
Mike Tisdale (NR)

The roster next year, with RSCI ranking for each player:

Tracy Abrams (60)
Joe Bertrand (NR)
Nnanna Egwu (NR)
Tyler Griffey (NR)
Crandall Head (76)
Mycheal Henry (56)
Meyers Leonard (29)
Brandon Paul (49)
DJ Richardson (35)
Jereme Richmond (24)
Mike Shaw (50)

My utmost apologies for the 2008/09 bus tossing there – that team scratched and clawed their way to a solid season, where some more talented teams in the past didn’t make it – but DID YOU SEE THE TALENT ON NEXT YEAR’S TEAM? And the three guys that aren’t ranked (Bertrand, Griffey, and Egwu) were all very close to making the cut. Bertrand and Griffey were both in the second to last RSCI ranking before falling out of the final one. And I believe Egwu is in the top-100 on 4 of the 7 RSCI services, but doesn’t have enough cumulative points to make the list.

What does this mean? It means that on paper, this is one of, if not the, most talented teams in Illini history. Talent isn’t the only thing, mind you – you have to have experience and leadership and, most importantly, a solid rotation. Which brings us to the third reason we needed Mike Shaw.

Bigs. We need ‘em. Our roster before the Shaw verbal had seven players in the PG-2G-SF range and only three at PF-C. Abrams, Bertrand, Paul, Richardson, Head, Henry, and Richmond would fight it out for guard/wing minutes, and only Griffey, Egwu, and Leonard would rotate at PF-C. Yes, I think Richmond can play a little 4, and that will help, but having Shaw in the mix is a huge boost.

(As an aside… I love Tyler Griffey, and typing this out, I’m realizing what a huge, huge role he will play in 2011/12 and 2012/13. Huge. Like, 31 minutes per game huge.)

Mike Shaw gives us the flexibility to go a bit smaller/faster when we want to. As long as he’s strong enough to guard the four, we’ll have lots of flexibility at both ends. And in a few years, I could see him as a Roger Powell-ish glue guy that gets the tough rebound and blocks the big shot and puts back his own three pointer to start a rally in the second half of the national semifinal game at the Final Four.

And yes, especially if everyone sticks around after the 2011/12 season (a big if), the Final Four is the expectation for 2012/13. Why? Here’s why.

Every RSCI player recruited by Illinois since the inception of the consensus index in 1998.  2011/12 (and 2012/13) roster in bold:

19 Dee Brown
20 Brian Cook
21 Frank Williams
24 Jereme Richmond
28 Rich McBride
29 Meyers Leonard
35 DJ Richardson
36 Alex Legion
48 Deron Williams
49 Brandon Paul
49 Brian Carlwell
50 Mike Shaw
53 Brian Randle
56 Mycheal Henry
60 Tracy Abrams
62 Roger Powell
71 Demetri McCamey
76 Crandall Head
77 Shaun Pruitt
78 James Augustine
78 Nick Smith
86 Aaron Spears

14 years, 22 consensus top-100 players, eight on the same team.

Good choice, Mr. Shaw.

Well, the rankings hit yesterday.

MY GOD WILL ANYONE BE ABLE TO STOP US IN 2012/13?

Wednesday, Mychael Henry debuted at #66 in Scout’s rankings.  Yesterday, he debuted at #18 in Rivals rankings.  As in, 5-star.  As in, highest ranked Illini recruit on Rivals since Dee.  As in, MY GOD WILL ANYONE BE ABLE TO STOP US IN 2012/13?

Let me first say this:  I’m one who believes that recruiting rankings matter tremendously.  80% of everything you need to know about a team can be determined by looking at the recruiting rankings for each player on the roster.  Ranked kids = wins.  The other 20% is important too – it’s what separates the really good teams from the disappointing teams – but without talent, a team can only go so far.   Kansas State basketball was awful for 20 years until Bob Huggins and Frank Martin started recruiting top-100 kids, and this year they nearly made the Final Four.  It’s not a perfect equation – Michigan under Tommy Amaker had tons of ranked kids and couldn’t even make the tournament – but 19 times out of 20, highly ranked recruits = highly ranked teams. It’s science.

So when history looks back on Illini Basketball in the first 25 years of this decade, and history sees a dip at the end of the aughts, history needn’t look any further than this statistic to understand why:  In his first five recruiting classes at Illinois, Bruce Weber had three consensus top-100 recruits – Shaun Pruitt, Brian Carlwell, and Demetri McCamey.  In his next three recruiting classes (2009 through 2011) he had eight. (so far)

Let’s put it this way: using Rivals’ recruiting rankings…

Fall 2007 Illini Roster
Calvin Brock (unranked)
Brian Carlwell (#77)
Bill Cole (unranked)
Chester Frazier (unranked)
Jeff Jordan (unranked)
Demetri McCamey (#72)
Trent Meacham (unranked)
Shaun Pruitt (#78)
Brian Randle (#53)
Richard Semrau (unranked)
Jamar Smith (unranked)
Mike Tisdale (#125)

Fall 2011 Illini Roster
Tracy Abrams (#54)
Joseph Bertrand (#128)
Nnanna Egwu (#57)
Tyler Griffey (#120)
Crandall Head (#84)
Mychael Henry (#18)
Meyers Leonard (#31)
Brandon Paul (#42)
DJ Richardson (#38)
Jereme Richmond (#35)

MY GOD WILL ANYONE BE ABLE TO STOP US IN 2012/13?

OK, I’m getting ahead of myself.  Chester Frazier was nowhere near the Rivals 150, but his heart and determination (and defense) took an otherwise mediocre team and put them in the tournament.  Without skill development and heart (and defense), these are just numbers.

But what great numbers they are.  Probably some of the best numbers ever accumulated on an Illini roster.  And we still have three scholarships to give.

The best news?  That 2011 roster probably has a starter and a backup at every position:

PG – Abrams, Bertrand
SG – Richardson, Paul
WG/WF – Henry, Head
SF/PF – Richmond, Griffey
C – Leonard, Egwu

Wait, this post was supposed to be about Henry. If you haven’t seen him before, watch his sweet stroke in this video:

Admit it – on that three in the corner, when he kicked out his feet a little bit, you thought of Luther, didn’t you. Me too.

My player comparison for him? Deron’s backcourt mate with the Jazz – Wesley Matthews (Marquette). Long arms, high release, fluid, the ability to score around the hoop with a little wrist flick – it looks like it’s all there.

Where does that fit in on future Illini teams? When we go big (Richmond at the 3, with Griffey and Leonard in the frontcourt), he allows us to go even bigger in the backcourt with a tall, lanky 2. When we go small, with Richmond at the 4 and Leonard/Egwu at the 5, it gives us the perfect WF for the motion (paired with any combination of Abrams, Richardson, Paul, Bertrand, and Head). Options, options, who wants some options.

And we still have 3 more scholarships to give.

I spent the next seven minutes Tweeting and analyzing the arrangement of the hats on the podium.  When I arrived, it was Illinois, Duke, Mizzou across the front with Kansas, Florida, and Ohio State in back.  I figured this was a bad sign, as kids never reach front right for the hat they want. It’s always one of the hats closest to them.

BUT WAIT. The TV cameras couldn’t see the hats in the back row, so the athletic department dude in charge of the hats moved them all around.  Now it’s Kansas, Illinois, Mizzou in the back row with Ohio State, Duke, and Florida taped to the front.  Illinois hat, front and center!  I double-checked the voice memo feature on my iPhone (never used it), ’cause daddy’s gonna get an exclusive interview after Beal dons the orange and blue.

And then the Florida hat fell.  Least amount of tape – that’s a sign, I thought.  They taped the Ohio State hat and the Duke hat with several pieces of tape, but the Florida hat with only one.  He’s headed to Florida, obviously.

Wait.  The Duke hat fell, too.  Now the Ohio State and Florida hats are re-taped, and the Duke hat is placed in the back.  DEAR GOD DO NOT LET HIM CHOOSE DUKE.

All of this is a blur, mind you, because I was really, really nervous.  I usually am for a big recruiting announcement, hurriedly refreshing my computer screen to find out the news.  But in the library, my heart was pounding.  “What if he picks Illinois? What if I get to be the one to break the news to Illiniland?  What if I ask for an interview and his family grants it?  I’ve never done an interview – WHAT THE HELL WOULD I ASK?”  As I was daydreaming about a scenario where I ask him an awkward question like “Did you watch the Cincy game?  What was with that non-review on the Fayson TD?”, Beal stepped up to the podium and the room grew silent.

False alarm.  It was a photo op.  I was tweeting something about the students behind me talking about how “this is going to be on the internet in 10 minutes” when the athletic director got up to speak.

“Proud day for Chaminade”… “here’s Bradley with his announcement”… “thank my family and coaches for getting me to this point”… “and so I am choosing”…

Florida.

I had already started my tweet with “Here we go. And the pick is…” so I could prove the “10 minutes” guys behind me wrong.  And I’ll be honest – I held my thumb over the “I” for good luck.  But it was not to be. I let out a sigh, typed in the word “Florida”, hit send, and began to plan my exit.

The mob of Chaminade students in the library prevented a quick exit, so I stuck around to listen to some of the interviews and take a few pics.  My take?  He fell in love with Florida the second he stepped foot on campus.  He wanted to commit on his visit (he said as much at the podium), but his parents and coaches encouraged him to take his time/take some visits.  He visited us, and visited Kansas, but never fell out of love with Florida. The end.

I was serious when I tweeted that I was considering swiping the Illinois hat.  When we play Florida in the 2013 Sweet 16, how great would it be to wear the Beal press conference Illini hat for good luck?  I mean, he doesn’t need it any more, right?

But in the end, I made the (wise) decision that stealing from a high school press conference is something only a mouth-breathing Mizzou fan would do. (Which led to a brief thought of stealing the Mizzou hat, screaming “The deity that is Mike Anderson will send you all to burn in his forty minutes of hell”, and running out of the room. But I decided against that, too.)

So we lost a 5-star recruiting battle.  Again.  I know recruiting battles don’t count for much on the scoreboard, and I know that recruiting has been going swimmingly over the past few years, but I still want to win one of these.  Part of me wishes Jereme Richmond had waited for a hat presser, faked like he was going to pick up the Kentucky hat, and then donned the Illini.  I think we deserve that kind of celebration (and resulting message board meltdown).  But today, it was not to be.

At least he didn’t pick Kansas.

And oh how I love those little numbers.  When you have a lot of them, a deep tournament run is likely.  No numbers, and you probably stay home.  No, the system isn’t perfect, but there’s a reason North Carolina won it all last year.  And Kansas the year before.  And Florida, and so on.  Little numbers, somewhere between 1 and 100, predicting the future.

The best numbers come from the RSCI.  They take all of the little numbers from the guys who give out the numbers, average them, and come up with even better numbers.  It has been incredibly accurate in predicting future success in college hoops.  It takes a Pat Kennedy or a Tommy Amaker to screw up low numbers.

The three guys who signed today? GREAT numbers.  Fantastic, low numbers.  Including the lowest number we’ve seen since the inception of the RSCI.  And, this was the first recruiting class this decade where every recruit had a number. (Last year came close, but the RSCI dropped HoopScoop from their list of experts before releasing their final Top-100, and Tyler Griffey fell off the list from #92 and Joe Bertrand fell off the list from #94).

You’ve probably read a dozen reports today on these recruits and their strengths, so I’ll just focus on the numbers.  In the 13 years that the RSCI has been published, Illinois has had 19 recruits listed. They are, as follows (with their ranking that year):

18 – Jereme Richmond
19 – Dee Brown
20 – Brian Cook
21 – Frank Williams
28 – Richard McBride
35 – DJ Richardson
36 – Meyers Leonard
36 – Alex Legion
48 – Deron Williams
49 – Brandon Paul
49 – Brian Carlwell
53 – Brian Randle
59 – Crandall Head
62 – Roger Powell
71 – Demetri McCamey
77 – Shawn Pruitt
78 – James Augustine
78 – Nick Smith
86 – Aaron Spears

And just for fun, let’s take a look at that list with next year’s team in bold:

18 – Jereme Richmond
19 – Dee Brown
20 – Brian Cook
21 – Frank Williams
28 – Richard McBride
35 – DJ Richardson
36 – Meyers Leonard
36 – Alex Legion
48 – Deron Williams
49 – Brandon Paul
49 – Brian Carlwell
53 – Brian Randle
59 – Crandall Head
62 – Roger Powell
71 – Demetri McCamey
77 – Shawn Pruitt
78 – James Augustine
78 – Nick Smith
86 – Aaron Spears

You know, that looks strikingly similar to…

18 – Jereme Richmond
19 – Dee Brown
20 – Brian Cook
21 – Frank Williams
28 – Richard McBride
35 – DJ Richardson
36 – Meyers Leonard
36 – Alex Legion
48 – Deron Williams
49 – Brandon Paul
49 – Brian Carlwell
53 – Brian Randle
59 – Crandall Head
62 – Roger Powell
71 – Demetri McCamey
77 – Shawn Pruitt
78 – James Augustine
78 – Nick Smith
86 – Aaron Spears

Just sayin’.

Jerrance, baby. Jerrance.

Rivals ranks Egwu as the #48 player in the 2011 class.  He’ll join Tyler Griffey, Stan Simpson, and Meyers Leonard in the frontcourt after Davis and Tisdale move on down the road.

I’ll have more later, but for now, I want to be all “breaking news, everyone” so that 3 people in Illiniland might learn of this news from me, thereby furthering my sportswriter fantasies.

Stay tuned to ALionEye as we follow this developing story.

(that was fun)

First, a few notes.  The numbers for DJ Richardson and Brandon Paul have been changed by yours truly.  Using the latest numbers from some of the scouting services that the RSCI uses, I’ve updated their ranking.  For example, in Dave Telep’s latest update on Scout, he moved Brandon Paul up 31 places (which adds 31 points to BP’s RSCI score), and he moved DJ Richardson up 24 places.  Because RSCI hasn’t updated their site yet, I’ve taken the liberty of doing so myself.  Depending on the movements of other players, the final rankings for these two should be within one or two spots.

I’ve also projected the RSCI numbers for the 2010 guys.  RSCI hasn’t come out with their ranking yet, but using their formula – and using the available rankings from Scout, Rivals, ESPN, and Hoopmasters – I’ve developed RSCI numbers for each of them.  For example, Richmond is ranked #6 on Scout, #19 on Rivals, #9 by ESPN, and #8 by HM.  That puts his RSCI number somewhere around 10.

So without further ado, I present the cumulative rankings of every Illini player recruited this decade (2001~2010). Fringe top-100 players (listed on a few top-100 lists but not on the RSCI) are listed as FR, unranked players are listed as UR. Players joining the program in the next two year are in bold.

#10 Jereme Richmond
#19 Dee Brown
#28 Richard McBride
#29 Crandall Head
#31 DJ Richardson
#36 Alex Legion
#38 Brandon Paul
#48 Deron Williams
#49 Brian Carlwell
#51 Meyers Leonard
#53 Brian Randle
#62 Roger Powell
#71 Demitri McCamey
#77 Shaun Pruitt
#78 James Augustine
#86 Aaron Spears
#92 Tyler Griffey
#94 Joseph Bertrand
FR Luther Head
FR Kyle Wilson
FR Warren Carter
FR Calvin Brock
FR Richard Semrau
FR Billy Cole
FR Mike Tisdale
UR Jamar Smith
UR Chester Frazier
UR CJ Jackson
UR Trent Meacham
UR Rodney Alexander
UR Mike Davis
UR Dominique Keller

I don’t know – think we might be pretty good in a few years?