NEWS: Illinois Basketball Junior Ty Rodgers to Redshirt

Per Jeremy Werner of Illini Inquirer, Illini junior wing Ty Rodgers will not be playing in tonight’s season opener vs Eastern Illinois. Rodgers has supposedly met with Brad Underwood and has decided to redshirt the 2024-2025 year. The news certainly comes as a surprise as Rodgers started every single game for Illinois basketball during the 2023-2024 season. Though his role was going to change with the influx of talent, Rodgers was expected to be a major leader and glue guy for this team. As one of two returners, Ty’s defensive prowess and toughness would have been rather useful. Ty averaged 6.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.0 assists last year.

However, with so many talented scoring wings, it did seem that Ty was falling out of favor. During the Ole Miss exhibition, Rodgers played 14 minutes and did not score a basket.

NEWS: #Illini wing Ty Rodgers is not playing tonight because he met with Brad Underwood and has decided to redshirt this season. pic.twitter.com/PYFn3DaIsX

— Jeremy Werner (@JWerner247) November 4, 2024

What this means?

Sencire Harris did the exact same thing last year. Harris was a talented freshman who realized that his role was not very sizeable and decided to redshirt before the season opener. Though Harris stuck with the team the entire season, he ended up transferring in the offseason. Would he have stayed if assistant Chester Frazier stayed on board? It would have been hard to tell, however, we currently do not know what Ty decides to do. As a multi-year player, Rodgers has adored himself to Illinois basketball fans. Hopefully, this is not the end of Rodgers’ career as an Illini basketball player.

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