Illinois basketball has built real momentum on the recruiting trail, and even a miss on Moussa Kamissoko doesn’t change the bigger picture.
The five-star forward from Geneva, Ohio, chose Syracuse and Gerry McNamara, ending a chase that had Illinois in the mix all the way through his official visit on September 18. Kamissoko made that trip with fellow five-star prospects Bentley Lusakueno, Dylan Betts and Darius Wabbington, a clear sign of the company Illinois has been keeping lately.
Kamissoko is ranked No. 14 nationally and No. 1 in Ohio. The 6-foot-7 forward becomes the first five-star commit of McNamara’s head coaching career and the second five-star Orange pledge in the last decade.
Syracuse is coming off a 15-17 season, including a 6-12 mark in ACC play that left the Orange 14th in the league. Kamissoko will be asked to help right away after the departures of leading scorers Donnie Freeman and Nate Kingz.
For Illinois, the loss stings, but it’s hardly a fatal blow. Brad Underwood and his staff have put the Illini in front of some of the best players in the country, and that kind of attention matters. Kamissoko fit the profile of the kind of wing Illinois has been targeting: long, skilled and still very much in the making.
247Sports Director of Scouting Adam Finkelstein described him this way:
"Kamissoko is a lanky big wing with versatile potential on both ends of the floor. Built with positional size, a 6-foot-11 wingspan, and high shoulders, he's older for his grade (turns 19 in January of his senior year), but still relatively lean and underdeveloped in his upper body. He's a bursty mover with terrific open floor speed and also fairly bouncy in space but less so among bodies."
That scouting report explains why Illinois pushed so hard. At 6-foot-7, Kamissoko has the frame and tools to become a matchup problem if he keeps adding strength and polish. He would have landed in a program that has shown it can develop talent, with strength and conditioning coach Adam Fletcher playing a major role in that process.
The key point for Illinois is that the recruiting board is still loaded. The Illini have already hosted official visits with Wabbington, Betts, Lusakueno and Brady Pettigrew, and Underwood remains in the hunt for some of the biggest names out there. In other words, Kamissoko’s decision hurts, but it doesn’t slow the run Illinois has built.
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