CHAMPAIGN — ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas tweeted first thing Monday morning about Malcolm Hill’s 40-point performance against Northern Kentucky the night before, calling the Illinois senior guard “one of the nation’s most versatile players.”
Ricky O’Donnell at SBNation used his Monday morning college basketball roundup to call Hill “the best player you don’t know.”
And before the 2016-17 season started, the staff at CBSSports.com predicted Illinois as an NCAA tournament team with Hill “reason Nos. 1, 2 and 3 for that” while ranking him as the 28th-best player in the country.
Hill’s reaction Monday morning to his 40-point game — just the seventh all-time in Illinois history and first since Brandon Paul dropped 43 on Ohio State in February 2012?