Jon Ekey Made An Unofficial Visit To Illinois On Tuesday

This morning I wrote about John Groce keeping his options open when it comes to figuring out what the Illini can do with their open scholarships, particularly when it comes to whether or not they plan on bringing in a fifth-year transfer or two.

I specifically mentioned a couple of possibilities that have been mentioned for transfers that included Illinois State's Jon Ekey, and guess who was on campus for an unofficial visit Tuesday?

From Marcus Jackson:

Funny you should mention Ekey, the former Illinois State forward was on the Illinois campus yesterday taking an unofficial visit. Illinois is a very likely destination for the 6-7 shooter.

Ekey would fill a big need for next year's Illinois team that is very light on shooters. Tracy Abrams shot 27 percent from three last season, Joseph Bertrand was 32 percent, Myke Henry was 31 percent and while it sounds like Rayvonte Rice has improved his outside shooting, the Illini are going to need shooters and Ekey can fill it up.

He averaged nine point and shot 41 pecent from three as a sophomore under Tim Jankovic, who runs a ball-screen offense similar to Illinois' on a really good Illinois State team in 2011-12. He didn't feel like he fit in Dan Muller's system and the numbers dictated that. Ekey averaged 6.4 points and shot 35 percent from long range. If he can get back into a comfortable situation, he could return to that form of two years ago.

He'll be sought after from a number of Big Ten programs. He can rebound it a litlte bit, too. Ekey pulled down five rebound sper game as a sophomore and cleared better than four last season.

To me Ekey isn't all that disimilar than Tyler Griffey. He's got a big body, but he's more of a stretch four than a rebounder or banger down low. So if Ekey did come to Champaign I'd still like to see somebody more like Sam McLaurin come as well.

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