Illini Basketball 2020 Scholarship Player Positional Guide

Illini Now/Sports Illustrated gives you an in-depth look at the basketball scholarship situation broken down by year.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Illinois head coach Brad Underwood has constantly said that college basketball is no longer defined by replenishing classes that graduate.

Players rarely stay four years in their college playing career and over 1,000 Division 1 players entered the transfer portal from last season. For the third straight season, Illinois’ roster will once again be defined by the transfer portal and the NBA draft decision of its star players. Even as Illini stars Ayo Dosunmu and Kofi Cockburn still deliberate on a professional basketball decision with the NCAA’s Aug. 3 decision nearly a month away, Illinois will welcome two transfers (Jacob Grandison from Holy Cross and Austin Hutchison from a Division III school) to the active roster. The Illini also lost two players to the transfer portal as Alan Griffin elected to move on to Syracuse and Tevian Jones transferred to Southern Utah.

"This is our new norm," Underwood said about recruiting during the coronavirus stay-at-home orders. "I tell everybody it’s junior college recruiting. I’ve got good years of experience there. You just get on the phone and build good relationships with people over the phone and you do background checks over the phone and try to get as much information as you can possibly get via the digital route."

Senior Day at State Farm Center in March will involve two players: Trent Frazier, who was the one of the first commitments to Underwood’s program once he took the job at Illinois, and Da’Monte Williams, who is the son of former All-Big Ten Conference point guard Frank Williams. The Illinois roster situation for the 2020-21 is interesting because it will involve five freshman after Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk qualifies for a injury waiver that allows him to use last season as a redshirt campaign. He’ll stay in the freshman class with the nationally-ranked 2020 recruiting class that includes Illinois Mr. Basketball selection Adam Miller, four-star guard Andre Curbelo, three-star forward Coleman Hawkins from California and the late addition of 7-foot center Brandon Lieb.

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NOTES: The Illini Now/Sports Illustrated scholarship chart is sorted by year, not by place on the depth chart.

Players who still have draft decisions to make by Aug. 3 but are still eligible for the 2020 season are bolded and italicized.

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NUMBERS:

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2020 SCHOLARSHIP PLAYERS - 13

SENIORS - 2

JUNIORS - 4

SOPHOMORES - 2

FRESHMEN - 5

<strong>SENIORS</strong>	<strong>JUNIORS</strong>	<strong>SOPHOMORES</strong>	<strong>FRESHMEN</strong>
Trent Frazier - G	Ayo Dosunmu - G	Kofi Cockburn - C	Benjamin Bosmans-Verdonk - F (medical waiver)
Da'Monte Williams - G	Giorgi Bezhanishvili - F	Jermaine Hamlin - F	Andre Curbelo - G
	Jacob Grandison - G/F		Coleman Hawkins - F
	Austin Hutcherson - G		Adam Miller - G
			Brandon Lieb - C