Illinois Basketball: October Visit Is Huge for Mayan Kiir's Future
As the Illinois basketball team continues to build their class of 2017, one name continues to pop up as an important piece to the championship puzzle.
That piece is 6-foot-10, 225-pound, big man Mayan Kiir.
The recruitment of Kiir, for the most part, has been quiet. He really hasn’t had a ton of interviews or press, but his decision does seem to be between two teams, VCU and Illinois.
This decision is going to affect both teams in certain ways.
For VCU, Kiir is important because VCU needs to remain relevant in the college basketball world. They have been winning the last six seasons and they don’t want that to go away.
With a coaching transition before last season, Will Wade needs to still prove that the winning wasn’t all on Shaka Smart’s shoulders.
Kiir is important for the Illini because he could be the piece to a national championship. Wait, weren’t the Illini a 15-win team last season?
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Yes, they were but that had a lot to do with injuries on the basketball court. The class of 2017 for the Illini is arguably the best in Illinois basketball history and is likely to be a national championship contender for the next few years.
So, there is a lot at stake for both teams with the recruitment of Kiir. This is why the visit that he has set up for October 7-9 is so important.
Illinois needs to show Kiir that Champaign is the place to be and that his star will shine brightest with the Illini.
Now, I will address the VCU trolls that continue to plague the Twittersphere with their negativity about Illinois.
VCU has one thing and one thing only to hold over the Illini. They have been winning the last six seasons and Illinois has hit a bump in the road.
While that is a fact, you also have to take into account that VCU has played in the A-10 and the CAA in the last six seasons. Those two conferences don’t exactly have Big Ten caliber opponents.
You also have to take into account that Smart isn’t with the program anymore. He left for a bigger and better coaching job at Texas.
Five of the six successful seasons came under Smart and the last season under Wade was with his players. No one really knows what they are getting with Wade.
Illinois also has a better class coming in for 2017 as well. Kiir will have a chance to play with better players that can get him to the national championship.
And the final note I want to add to this has to do with the fanbases. Kiir is clearly getting a lot of love from VCU fans on twitter and that is cool. But, Illinois has the numbers to prove how passionate they are.
Illinois ranked No. 15 in the nation in attendance last season with an average of 14,652 attendees at each game.
What is most impressive about those numbers is Illinois only had 15 wins. Fans still showed up despite a down year due to injury.
That is a passionate fanbase that not many teams in the nation can match. Illinois has the whole package and I think it would be a perfect landing spot for Kiir.
Hopefully, he feels the same way because this train is moving full steam ahead. It is time to hop on it now because the next stop is the national championship.
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