Illinois Basketball is Evaluating 2025 SG Phoenix Gill

Illinois Basketball is Evaluating 2025 SG Phoenix Gill

After a long and winding off-season, Illinois Basketball seems to have its roster finalized. Quincy Guerrier has arrived on campus after taking summer courses elsewhere. Justin Harmon is the only missing piece, however he did tweet that he sees “orange and blue” today. In all, Illinois Basketball lost Jayden Epps, RJ Melendez, Brandon Lieb and Matthew Mayer, and replaced that with Quincy Guerrier, Marcus Domask, Justin Harmon, Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn and Amani Hansberry.

On top of that, Morez Johnson continues to climb up the 2024 rankings and has established himself as the best in-state prospect. Illinois Basketball is also after Jason Jakstys, a long, mobile athlete that has an intriguing skill set at the center position. However, they also are working on their 2025 relationships. Now is the time that programs start to build the foundation for possible top end prospects. Prospects like Phoenix Gill.

The player:

Phoenix Gill is the son of former Illini legend, Kendall Gill. Gill had quite the four year career in Champaign, and was part of one of the most notable and successful teams in Fighting Illini history. Phoenix is a combo guard in the class of 2025, and continues to improve his game. Though he is not officially ranked and does not have many offers outside of Illinois, Valparaiso and Purdue, the young Gill has an interesting skill set. He projects as more of a scoring-combo guard as opposed to a true floor general, however he continues to add muscle to his 6 foot 2 frame. If Gill continues to grow, he will certainly accrue power-five offers this summer.

Regardless of his development, Illinois has laid the foundation with Phoenix Gill. They were one of the first programs to offer and he has been on campus plenty of times. Additionally, his father has been quite supportive of Brad Underwood and the University of Illinois these past few years.

The roster fit

Once the class of 2025 class becomes college freshmen, Illinois will need guards. Ty Rodgers and Sencire Harris would be seniors if they are still on this campus. Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn will be a junior at the time. Nico Moretti will hopefully have rounded out his body by then, however landing a guard like Gill would give them a nice piece to learn from these four upperclassmen. Though attrition is bound to happen, Gill will fill a position of need as a young combo guard to play alongside a Morez Johnson and Amani Hansberry.

Regardless, it would be cool to see what the young Gill can do. Obviously his father is an Illini legend, however he is starting to put together his own path pretty well.