Five-star point guard Darius Garland (Brentwood, TN) is the latest class-of-2018 prospect to receive a scholarship offer from John Groce and Illinois basketball. The 5-foot-11 guard is rated as the No. 16 overall recruit in 247Sports' composite rankings, and he's the No. 1 player from the state of Tennessee.
As a sophomore at Brentwood Academy, Garland was named Tennessee's Division II-AA Mr. Basketball after averaging 18.0 points, 4.5 assists, 2.7 steals, and 2.1 rebounds per game during the regular season.
Blessed to receive an Offer from The University of Illinois #Fighting #lllini pic.twitter.com/XtfEVhKdMt
— Darius Garland (@dariusgarland22) May 8, 2016
In addition to Illinois, Garland also has scholarship offers from Arizona State, Baylor, Indiana, Louisville, Memphis, Tennessee, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Virginia, and Wake Forest. There's probably a long way to go in this recruitment, but it's probably worth mentioning that the Commodores (75%) are leading in Garland's crystal ball; he took an unofficial visit to Nashville in early March.
Highlights
Note: this video is from Garland's freshman year (10 months ago)
Garland is AAU teammates with Jordan Goodwin ('16) and Tim Finke ('18), who happen to be two of Illinois' top recruiting targets. So the coaching staff has undoubtedly seen him play quite a bit with the St. Louis Eagles this Spring.
We don't yet have a list of Illinois' 2018 targets, but you can click here for a complete list of the program's 2017 scholarship offers. That's almost as good, right?