NCAA Basketball: 25 biggest offseason winners heading into 2021-22 season

Heading into the NBA Draft deadline for players to leave, it looked as if Illinois was going to be one of the biggest losers of the offseason. They had expectedly lost stars Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn to the draft but then lost freshman guard Adam Miller and forward Giorgi Bezhanishvili from the roster as well, two big losses.

And while most teams make headlines for head coaching transactions, Illinois had to deal with losing all three main assistants from the staff, with two of them going to Kentucky and the other heading back to Gonzaga. All things considered, the Illini were looking as if they were heading into a rebuilding stage rather than building off an earned No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

That all changed the moment Cockburn decided to exit the draft process. Now, that ended up being a month-long storyline in itself, with the All-American center entering the transfer portal and reportedly was a near-lock to end up at Kentucky along with those assistants. In the end though, the center elected to return to the Illini, giving them a star player and automatically bolstering the overall roster.

Cockburn averaged 17.7 ppg and 9.5 rpg and was one of the best bigs in the country. And with Dosunmu gone, he’ll be the unquestioned go-to guy on offense. And with Andre Curbelo, a potential breakout star and Utah transfer Alfonso Plummer a double-digit capable scorer, Illinois should find themselves ranked in the preseason, something no one thought would happen before July.