Mycheal Henry Decides To End It

May 10, 2010

7:00 P.M. CST

Mycheal Henry wasn't kidding when he indicated this past weekend that he might be ready to end his recruitment.  As it turns out, the 6'6 class of 2011 forward from Orr High School in Chicago verbally committed today to the University Of Illinois.  Henry chose the Illini over offers from Wisconsin, Georgetown and Marquette.  He had been scheduled to visit Wisconsin some time this week.

There is no question that what enabled Illini head coach Bruce Weber to close the deal on Henry was the visit that he took to the Champaign campus over this past weekend.  Henry had stated that if the situation felt right to him after completing any of his upcoming visits that he wouldn't hesitate to offer up a commitment.  Sure enough, that ended up being the case with respect to the Illini.

As we have reported numerous times, there is no player in the loaded 2011 class from Illinois who enhanced his stock more over the course of the past season than Henry.  He enjoyed an outstanding junior season at Orr and in our minds has now solidified his status as a top five player in the state in the class of 2011.

Henry is a spectacular athlete and also sports tremendous upper body strength which allows him to dominate offensively around the basket.  He cleans up on the boards, is an effective low-post scorer and scores a multitude of points off of putbacks.  However, the area where he has shown the greatest improvement is with respect to his wing skills, and that is why the Illini coaching staff saw him as a must recruit.  Simply put, Henry has become the prototypical 3-man, as he can consistently face up and drill shots from well beyond the 3-point arc.  He gets tremendous lift on his shot and has outstanding form.

While it was long believed that the Illini and Wisconsin were neck-and-neck for Henry's services, what tipped the scales in the Illini's favor was the outstanding relationship that Henry has with assistant coach Jerrance Howard.  In fact, Henry has not hesitated to let everyone know that he considers Howard to be "like a brother" to him.

Henry becomes the Illini's third commitment from the class of 2011 to go along with 6'1 point guard Tracy Abrams from Mt. Carmel High School in Chicago and 6'9 center Nnanna Egwu from St. Ignatius College Prep in Chicago.  With Henry now in the fold, coach Weber and his staff will now turn their primary attention to landing a top-tier 4-man from 2011, with their primary targets being 6'10 Anthony Davis from Perspective High School in Chicago and 6'7 Mike Shaw from De LaSalle Institute in Chicago.

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