Illinois Basketball: Breaking down the 2020 recruiting class

Illinois basketball could be losing talent to the NBA this offseason but has a talented recruiting class coming in. How could the 2020 trio make an impact?

Illinois basketball feels like a program that is back on the rise. Although the Fighting Illini still have not reached the NCAA Tournament since 2013, that was surely going to change during this past campaign prior to the cancelation of the event. This past season was only the third under head coach Brad Underwood and he only seems to be just finding his footing in Champaign.

This is especially true with regard to recruiting, as it feels like Coach Underwood is setting the bar higher for himself with each year. This has been evident early in his tenure as he landed Ayo Dosunmu (No. 32 in 2018 class) and Kofi Cockburn (No. 46 in 2019 class) in back-to-back years before putting all the pieces together in 2020 for his best all-around group since taking over.

This incoming trio of freshman for the 2020-21 season is currently ranked as the 15th-best in the entire country and represents the future of the program. In addition to continuing the “Morgan Park Pipeline” with another in-state four-star commitment, Coach Underwood also secured a pair of other highly-regard players. It is no secret that Illinois’s incoming class has the potential to be special and could emerge on the scene as early as this fall.

Although Dosunmu and Cockburn are testing the NBA Draft waters at this point in the offseason, one or both of them could elect to return to Champaign for another season. If that turns out to be the case, then the Fighting Illini will have plenty of returning star power as well as an incoming freshman class capable of making a major difference from the opening tip.

So, without any further ado, let’s dive a little deeper into Illinois’s 2020 recruiting class to see how each could impact a potential Top 25 team as freshmen and how their careers could unfold after that.