Hawkins, Shannon returning to Illinois
May 31—CHAMPAIGN — Illinois fans got what they were hoping for on Wednesday night.
Coleman Hawkins and Terrence Shannon Jr. will be back in the fold for the Illini in 2023-24 after withdrawing from the NBA draft as the deadline to so began to loom large.
Shannon announced his decision first at 7:16 p.m. by posting an image on Twitter that simply stated "I'm back."
Multiple reports emerged regarding Hawkins' decision about two and a half hours later before Hawkins confirmed the news by tweeting a video with 53 minutes remaining until the 10:59 p.m. deadline.
Brad Underwood is now set to return his leading scorer from 2022-23 in Shannon, who averaged 17.2 points per game, and his leading rebounder and distributor in Hawkins, who snagged 6.3 rebounds while dishing three assists per game.
Hawkins, a 6-foot-10, 225-pound forward from Sacramento, Calif., has been a steady piece for the Illini during all three years of his college career.
He's appeared in 91 of Illinois' 97 games since the start of the 2020-21 season and started 47 of those contests. He started each of Illinois' 33 games last season.
Shannon, a 6-foot-6, 210-pound wing from Chicago, arrived in Champaign last season after spending the previous three seasons at Texas Tech, where he helped the Red Raiders to a Sweet Sixteen appearance in 2021-22 with an average of 10.4 points per game.
Hawkins announced his decision to enter the NBA draft on March 28 before Shannon did the same on April 12.
ESPN NBA draft analysts Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo had projected them to be selected with back-to-back second round picks in their latest mock draft released earlier on Wednesday.
Hawkins was slotted to go to his hometown Sacramento Kings with the 54th overall pick before the Indiana Pacers selected Shannon with the 55th pick.
That possibility is off the table as Illinois is set to return a significant amount of minutes from last season's team.
Hawkins and Shannon led the Illini in minutes played in 2022-23; Hawkins with an average of 32.5 minutes per game while Shannon played an average of 32 minutes per game.
Shannon's 991 minutes ranked second on the team despite him missing two games due to injury.
Illinois hasn't returned two players who played 900 minutes or more since Ayo Dosunmu and Trent Frazier did so between 2019-20 and 2020-21.
