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Post by UICJohn on Mar 21, 2022 17:37:09 GMT -6
Offer:
Achor Achor JUCO 6’9” 222 lb shooting guard Played one year at Chipola College
23 games (5 starts) 4 PPG 3.3 RPG 50% FG 25% 3-point 65% FT
Offers from UIC, Bryant, McNeese State, and North Carolina A&T
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Post by UICJohn on Mar 23, 2022 21:25:09 GMT -6
Cameron Fens currently holds offers from UIC and Western Illinois. He took an official visit to UIC last week. However, no offers yet but is said to be receiving interest from Iowa and Northern Iowa. We will see what happens with that situation in the coming weeks.
He was named All State and also Co-MVP of the Eastern Iowa All Star game
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Post by Chuck A on Mar 24, 2022 2:31:35 GMT -6
Fens actually wants to go to Iowa, but they haven't offered even after Coach McCaffrey saw Fens in person. I read where Cameron said he has to be patient. My thinking is that McCaffrey wants him to be a walk on. We could use the guy.
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Post by Big D on Mar 24, 2022 10:27:56 GMT -6
With the transfer portal now, why would you want to be a walk-on? Go somewhere you can play, and if you show you are good enough for Iowa, they will take you down the road if that’s what you really want.
This kind of reminds me of Max Bielfeldt…remember that name? Back around 2010-ish maybe. Seems we were in on him pretty hard before he ended up choosing to be a walk-on at Michigan where he had a mediocre career before eventually transferring to Indiana.
Anyone notice Grant Basille transferring from Wright State? That’s a big loss for them. I’d love to have a player like him on UIC. Almost certainly moving to a major though.
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Post by Greg on Mar 24, 2022 10:49:34 GMT -6
Great memory Big D, I remember Max Bielfeldt, he would have had a much greater opportunity with us. Wisconsin and others are looking at Grant Basille but I would love to have him
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Post by Greg on Mar 24, 2022 11:04:58 GMT -6
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Post by UICJohn on Mar 24, 2022 11:47:56 GMT -6
Fens actually wants to go to Iowa, but they haven't offered even after Coach McCaffrey saw Fens in person. I read where Cameron said he has to be patient. My thinking is that McCaffrey wants him to be a walk on. We could use the guy. I thought I read that Iowa currently doesn’t have a scholarship opening for him so maybe can’t offer until someone transfers or is politely asked to leave.
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Post by Big D on Mar 26, 2022 20:48:13 GMT -6
Is the new way of life simply grabbing a freshman or two and otherwise shopping the portal for most of our needs? I have seen us contact a number of transfers, just in the last couple days. Is this what we should come to expect going forward? Doing most of our recruiting right before the late signing period? Every year we lose a handful and replace them with castoffs from power schools or lower tier players trying to move up? I don’t really know how I feel about this. On one hand, your success (or lack thereof) could vary wildly from year to year. But I’d like to see us develop players and have them contribute for a career, not for 1 graduate season. Are the days of Boahens, Otteys, Fergusons, and Diggins over?
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Post by Chuck A on Mar 27, 2022 0:18:50 GMT -6
Is the new way of life simply grabbing a freshman or two and otherwise shopping the portal for most of our needs? I have seen us contact a number of transfers, just in the last couple days. Is this what we should come to expect going forward? Doing most of our recruiting right before the late signing period? Every year we lose a handful and replace them with castoffs from power schools or lower tier players trying to move up? I don’t really know how I feel about this. On one hand, your success (or lack thereof) could vary wildly from year to year. But I’d like to see us develop players and have them contribute for a career, not for 1 graduate season. Are the days of Boahens, Otteys, Fergusons, and Diggins over? Unfortunately the transfer portal is here to stay. They'll probably make adjustments to it. One adjustment will be eliminating the immediate eligibility because of Covid. Once Coach Yak gets a winning squad in place, I think the emphasis will be on high school recruits and developing them. The TP will be to fill in with "free agents" with some experience to shore up holes. There seems to be less transfers from winning programs. In our case, the guys that left weren't getting significant minutes or helping the program anyway.
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Post by UICJohn on Mar 27, 2022 7:31:18 GMT -6
I believe I read somewhere (I believe on Twitter on re: to Cameron Fens, the C we are recruiting) that the extra year due to COVID has really made a bigger impact - neither good or bad necessarily - on recruiting. But basically we have a larger pool of players right now than we wood normally due to extra years being granted.
I think with the number of openings we need to have a mixture of both veterans and incoming Freshman. We don’t want to have a McClain issue from a few years back where everyone left the same season and had basically restarting. I am hoping that’s the case at least.
At this point in the recruiting period though we are hearing a lot lot more on transfers we are in touch with than high school players.
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Post by bigsaltine on Mar 27, 2022 11:57:21 GMT -6
I’m very pro-transfer portal, especially for this transitional year. If we play it right a couple transfers could make us competitive in our first MVC year, which would be great for recruiting. I also think MVC schools operate in a unique place in the transfer ecosystem, and if done correctly UIC could really benefit. Go get that 4 star kid from Chicago who doesn’t play a lot and wants to come home, and go get the OVC kids that want to move up. When they transfer in it feels like they’re a lot less likely to leave than some freshman who has a great season.
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Post by Chuck A on Mar 29, 2022 2:34:24 GMT -6
I’m very pro-transfer portal, especially for this transitional year. If we play it right a couple transfers could make us competitive in our first MVC year, which would be great for recruiting. I also think MVC schools operate in a unique place in the transfer ecosystem, and if done correctly UIC could really benefit. Go get that 4 star kid from Chicago who doesn’t play a lot and wants to come home, and go get the OVC kids that want to move up. When they transfer in it feels like they’re a lot less likely to leave than some freshman who has a great season. Well, that didn't seem to be the case for Zion Griffin, but I feel ya.
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Post by uicc79 on Mar 29, 2022 5:38:11 GMT -6
I wonder about the rankings hung on these kids coming out of high school. The majority seem to be 2-star players, and that's probably correct. Maybe some play above their ranking when they get to college ball. I think others play below their rankings. I watched Iowa State, the team Griffen transferred from, play in the tournament and I had a hard time seeing him, supposedly a 4-star recruit, getting many minutes in those games. Anyway, I hope he finds whatever it is he's looking for from a school and a team. He reminds me a lot of K.J. Santos, supposedly very talented, but for some reason just could never find what it was he was looking for. Seems like he wasted his college career and I see Griffen doing the same thing.
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Post by bigsaltine on Mar 29, 2022 5:41:29 GMT -6
I’m very pro-transfer portal, especially for this transitional year. If we play it right a couple transfers could make us competitive in our first MVC year, which would be great for recruiting. I also think MVC schools operate in a unique place in the transfer ecosystem, and if done correctly UIC could really benefit. Go get that 4 star kid from Chicago who doesn’t play a lot and wants to come home, and go get the OVC kids that want to move up. When they transfer in it feels like they’re a lot less likely to leave than some freshman who has a great season. Well, that didn't seem to be the case for Zion Griffin, but I feel ya. My impression is that Griffin is leaving because he isn’t a great fit for Coach Yaks system, not that he was “outperforming” the Horizon League or MVC, because he surely was not lol
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Post by uiclaflame on Mar 29, 2022 9:14:41 GMT -6
Looks like Fens committed! I have a good feeling about him. Hoping he could an immediate contributor like Krutwig was for Loyola!
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