Illinois Selling 4-Star 2021 Wing Jordan Nesbitt As the Next Ayo

Four-star 2021 wing player Jordan Nesbitt says Illinois is selling him on the system that is flourishing for star guard Ayo Dosunmu.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- The sell job from Illinois to four-star wing Jordan Nesbitt involves just a three-letter pitch: A-Y-O.

Nesbitt told Sports Illustrated All-American basketball recruiting expert Jason Jordan Monday that Illini head coach Brad Underwood and assistant coach Orlando Antigua are selling the St. Louis prospect on the idea of being the next Ayo Dosunmu for the Illinois basketball program.

In his summer announcement of his return to the Illini basketball program for his junior season instead of staying in the NBA draft process, the all-Big Ten guard and likely preseason All-America candidate for this 2020-21 campaign immediately spoke about bringing Illinois something no other player who has worn the orange and blue can claim to have accomplished: A national championship.

“I get chills imagining everything that we could accomplish (in the 2020-21 season) and it’s something we deserve,” Dosunmu said. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A lot of people don’t have the opportunity to compete for a national championship in their home state and do it in the way my story was written.”

“It’s the culture they’re building and the system they’ve got,” Nesbitt told SIAA. “I’m similar to Ayo (Dosunmu) and they’re selling me on the fact that they would use me like they used him. That’s definitely something that’s appealing to me.”

Nesbitt is familiar with the Illinois campus in Champaign-Urbana after making an unofficial visit on March 1 where he attended the Illini’s 67-66 victory over Indiana in State Farm Center.

Nesbitt, a consensus four-star wing in the 2021 class, confirmed on Twitter earlier this month that he’s down to Illinois, Saint Louis and Memphis as his three possibilities. The senior 6-foot-6 and 180-pound forward at St. Louis Christian Academy, who is ranked No. 88 among ESPN’s Top 100 prospects for the 2021 class, averaged 25 points and 12 rebounds during the 2019-20 season.

Nesbitt also said on Twitter last week that he’ll be verbally committing to one of these three programs on his birthday of Oct. 1.

Despite a noted fan base in St. Louis that is represented every year in the Braggin’ Rights rivalry game vs. Missouri, Nesbitt could be the first letterwinner from the city of St. Louis to wear an Illini jersey since Bill Morris in 1972.

Nesbitt laid out the selling points of his final three choices to SIAA on Monday.

On Saint Louis: “It’s home and I would love to put on for the city and that’s really big for me. I definitely feel the pull from people here local to stay home. They tell me all the time. Everywhere I go people say stay home. It’s crazy.”

On Memphis: “A lot of people don’t know that two years ago coach Penny (Hardaway) came to a game to watch James Wiseman and he watched me too. Toward the end of this season he came back around and started talking to me again and then he offered me. I love how he told me he’d use me in his system. He wants me to be a one and a two, other schools want me to play the wing. That really appealed to me.”

Illinois has a verbal commitment from 2021 6-foot-5 small forward Luke Goode but the Fort Wayne, Ind., product is seen more of a pure shooter and Underwood’s program would obviously like to bring in a 2021 player that is more of a slasher on the opposite wing. The Illini are also still highly involved in the recruitment of four-star, 6-foot-10 center Mac Etienne (Wolfeboro, N.H.) and 6-foot-3 point guard TyTy Washington (Chandler, Ariz.) in the 2021 class.