Two particularly interesting scouting matchups went down Tuesday at Madison Square Garden, with Texas and Illinois followed by Duke and Iowa squaring off in one of the better nonconference matchup settings of the year so far. All four teams featured at least one potential first-round pick, and the event was well attended by NBA execs, as one might imagine. Without overreacting too much to one game for any player, here’s who and what stood out most to me from each side by the end of the night.
Coleman Hawkins begins to enter the picture
Much was made of Illinois’s Terrence Shannon Jr. squaring off against his former Texas Tech coach, Chris Beard (who now coaches Texas), but Shannon was quiet and not particularly impactful until he stepped up to help swing the 85–78 Illinois comeback win in overtime. Shannon has started the season well and played his way into late-first-round discussions, but the more interesting Illinois story line at the moment may be the growth of junior forward Hawkins, who is arguably the team’s best long-term prospect and has become a player of interest for scouts.
