Five-star Ayo Dosunmu ends long drought for Illinois basketball
MORE: Class of 2018 Rivals150
In his first year on the job, Illinois head coach Brad Underwood faced a big test on the recruiting trail. He absolutely had to land five-star point guard Ayo Dosunmu.
The Illini’s current roster would have allowed them to be OK if they missed out on the high scoring and physical Dosunmu. However, for a program that has underachieved on the floor and in recruiting throughout much of the Rivals.com era, winning out for a highly touted in-state prospect was an absolute must if Underwood wanted to galvanize the fanbase and ignite some excitement.
Recruiting is the lifeblood of any major program and given the resources available at Illinois, there’s no question that the Illini have underperformed. Especially given the local base of talent to recruit from.
Since Dee Brown committed to the Illini in the class of 2002, no other five-star prospect has actually made it to campus. From the state of Illinois, the Illini missed on 13 straight five-star prospects between 2003 and 2017.
There have been other five-stars from out of state. For instance, Charlie Villanueva was committed until Bill Self left for Kansas and Villanueva ended up at Connecticut. And there’s no Illini fan alive that will forgive Eric Gordon for bailing on the Illini to sign with home-state Indiana in the fall of 2006.
Dosunmu doesn’t just end a five-star drought, he ends a talent drought period. The Illini have only landed six players from the state of Illinois who ranked among the nation’s top 50 players. The last one was Mycheal Henry, who ranked No. 39 in 2011. Since Henry in 2011, only current Illini power forward LeRon Black (2014) and departed shooting guard Jalen Coleman-Lands (2015) have ranked in the national top 50, and both were brought in from out of state.
The lack of recruiting success has played out on the floor. Since 2008, the Illini have only made three of 10 NCAA tournaments. The 10 years prior to that they made nine of 10 and they came within an eyelash of winning it all in 2005. That was also the last time Illinois won any sort of conference championship when it won both the Big Ten regular season and tournament titles.
No, Ayo Dosunmu isn’t going to be the answer to all that has plagued the Illinois program over the last 15 years or so. But, he does represent something that the Illini haven’t had in a while and that’s a building block to the future. Where Underwood and his staff go from here is still to be determined, but Dosunmu was his first big test and it is one that he has passed with flying colors.
