Good Morning, Illini Nation: Rising draft prospects

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Sign up for our daily basketball newsletter here Welcome to Good Morning, Illini Nation, your daily dose of college basketball news from Illini beat writer and AP Top 25 voter Scott Richey.

Hell offer up insights every morning on Brad Underwoods team and college basketball at large: Kasparas Jakucionis got on to NBA draft boards after putting together a standout 2023-24 season on Barcelona's second team (basically the youth team) with a couple short runs with the main club.

The 6-foot-6 guard out of Vilnius, Lithuania, wound up averaging 19.2 points, 6.6 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 1.6 steals while putting up a shooting slash of 48/38/88 with the former.

That's how Jakucionis wound up projected as the No.

18 pick on ESPN's late June mock for the 2025 NBA Draft.

His play in August at the FIBA U18 EuroBasket is what will keep him on ESPN's next mock draft and maybe even give him a bump.

While turnovers were a bit of an issue, Jakucionis averaged 19.4 points, 5.3 assists and 4.3 rebounds playing for Lithuania in Finland last month, going toe-to-toe with another draft prospects like Spain's Hugo Gonzalez and France's Nolan Traore.

Kasparas Jakucionis showed his intriguing combination of size, shot-making diversity, pick-and-roll playmaking, and aggressiveness at the U18s, playing off hesitation moves, making intelligent reads, finding teammates on the move, and getting his shot off at will at 6'6.

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