Good Morning, Illini Nation: High-level draft projection

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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: Sam Vecenie dished out a double dose of mock draft content this week both with an updated 2025 mock for The Athletic ($) and a full first-round mock draft with Bryce Simon on his Game Theory Podcast platform.

Both vehicles are information dense particularly the podcast but that just makes them incredible resources if you're interested in who the top draft prospects might be come next June.

Included in that group is Kasparas Jakucionis.

The Illinois freshman guard checks in at No.

6 in the written mock, and Vecenie picked him at No.

9 in the podcast mock.

The full breakdown in the podcast starts at the 1-hour mark, which I have cued up here: And from The Athletic mock Vecenie wrote: "Jakucionis comes in at No.

6 because he is the player Ive received the most positive feedback on outside of that top group from sources connected to both college basketball and the NBA.".

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