Illinois basketball recruiting looks nothing like it used to, and that alone says plenty about where Brad Underwood has taken the program.
There was a stretch not all that long ago when seeing Illinois involved with a five-star felt like an event. The talent kept coming out of Chicago and the rest of the state, but the Illini too often watched those players end up elsewhere. For much of the Groce era and the years around it, Champaign was not the place elite prospects were flocking to.
That’s why this current recruiting run stands out so sharply. Illinois is not hanging around one top target and hoping for a lucky break. The Illini are in the mix with a deep group of elite prospects spread across the 2027 and 2028 classes.
The list is a loud one: Moussa Kamissoko, Darius Wabbington, Bentley Lusakueno, Dylan Betts, Benjamin Berrouet and Brady Pettigrew. Six names, six five-star prospects, two classes. For Illinois, that’s a remarkable shift in how the program is operating on the trail.
Kamissoko and Wabbington headline the 2027 group. Kamissoko is a long, athletic wing, while Wabbington checks in at nearly 6-foot-10 and brings real size.
In 2028, the ceiling may be even higher. Betts is a 7-foot-3 five-star from IMG Academy, and Lusakueno is another five-star forward from IMG Academy, giving Illinois a connection to one of the country’s biggest basketball pipelines.
Berrouet, another five-star, is scheduled to visit Champaign as well.
Then there’s Pettigrew, the name that may carry the most intrigue for Illinois fans. He’s a Bolingbrook product, one of the top players in the 2028 class and one of the best prospects Illinois has produced in recent years.
Landing him would matter. Even being in the thick of his recruitment matters, given how often the Illini used to get shut out of these conversations altogether.
That’s the real story here: the script has flipped. A decade or 15 years ago, Illinois supporters would have been thrilled just to have one of these players on the board. Now the question is how many of them the Illini can actually bring in.
The Final Four run only helps. Winning gives Underwood and his staff something tangible to sell, and recruits can see a program that just reached the sport’s biggest stage. But the bigger point is what these visits say about Illinois’ future.
The Illini do not need to sign all six. They do not even need most of them. If Illinois can turn this kind of attention into a couple of elite commitments in each class, the roster changes fast - and so does the perception around the program.
For years, the question was, “Why doesn’t Illinois get these guys?”
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