Illinois Basketball: The Jaylon Tate 2016-17 Preview
Over the past three seasons with the Illinois Basketball team, point guard Jaylon Tate has been a main staple in the program.
As a freshman, he was the primary backup point guard to Tracy Abrams. He played 12.2 minutes per game and that should have been the ceiling for him as far as playing time is concerned.
Well, the last two seasons he has been our starting point guard due to Abrams getting injured. In both seasons Abrams fell to injuries making the point guard situation extremely thin.
Abrams is back healthy and Tate is now back in the role he was supposed to be the entire time.
More from Writing Illini
This season, as a senior, Tate should be in the third rotation for the Illini. Ahead of him are two capable point guards in Abrams and Te’Jon Lucas.
Tate will have some type of role on this team, though.
I am not expecting Tate to average over 7 minutes a game this season. He is clearly the No. 3 point guard on the roster and besides for blowouts, either way, Tate shouldn’t see the floor too much.
But, when Tate does see the floor I want to see him get aggressive towards the basket. He is a nice, big, point guard that I think could score at the rim if he focused on that.
This upcoming season should be quiet for Tate as I am expecting something like 5 MPG. In those 5 MPG, I want to see an average of about 1 point per game and 1 assist per game.
I feel like these aren’t tough numbers to reach. I feel bad that Tate is probably going to be relegated to the back of the line, but there are two better point guards ahead of him.
This Illini team is poised to have a great year and having Tate keeps depth at the point guard position. That is something the Illini have been missing for years.
This article originally appeared on 
