Would Duke's Dame Sarr Have Been a Better Fit Than Andrej Stojakovic for Illinois?

Back in the spring of 2025, Illinois was fresh off a Round of 32 exit in the NCAA Tournament, and Brad Underwood was looking to rebuild a roster that had already lost a pair of one-and-done players to the NBA Draft (Kasparas Jakucionis and Will Riley), along with four more players who exited via the transfer portal.

One of the top options to serve as a building block for the future: 2025 international prospect Dame Sarr, who was, for quite some time, considered a lock to take his talents to Champaign. Then, Cal’s Andrej Stojakovic entered the transfer portal, and the Illini eventually landed him, which led to them backing off in their pursuit of Sarr.

At the time, the logic was clear: Acquire a proven bucket getter – remember, this is back when Keaton Wagler wasn’t even a top-250 recruit – with two years of high-major experience under his belt.

Sarr, who wound up picking Duke, was a highly rated recruit who had overseas reps to his name, but college hoops is a different kind of game, and Stojakovic had already shown what he was capable of against NCAA competition.

Should Illinois have taken Dame Sarr instead of Andrej Stojakovic?

Fast-forward to late February, though, and the question whether Illinois made the right move has become a reality. Stojakovic is the third-leading scorer for the Illini and has developed into a stellar-at-times perimeter defender.

By no means has Stojakovic, a 6-foot-7 wing, been poor – although Illinois would surely appreciate it if his three-point percentage (24.6 percent from deep) would climb a few ticks.

Meanwhile, Sarr hasn’t exactly been dynamite on offense at Duke. (In fact, he’s arguably been the opposite.) Defensively, though, Sarr has been phenomenal. The advanced stats reflect that sentiment: He ranks top five in the ACC in a handful of key defensive metrics. The eye test only backs it up.

A dominant on-ball defender, Sarr has tremendous foot speed for his size (6-foot-8), not to mention excellent length paired with next-level instincts that allow him to keep everything in front while creating turnovers at a solid rate.

DAME IS LOCKED IN pic.twitter.com/0Pm2bYLmq2
— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) February 8, 2026

On the rare occasions Sarr gets beat, there are few college perimeter defenders more capable of working themselves back into a play. And with his physical attributes, Sarr can match up with a wide variety of offensive players. Off the ball, Sarr is also a mistake-free defender – which has surely been aided by Duke’s exceptional coaching.

Offensively, he is slowly coming into his own but still mostly serves as a spot-up shooter (67.3 percent of his field-goal attempts come from deep) – a role in which, for now, he is below average (31.5 shooting percentage from beyond the arc).

Dame was big at FSU pic.twitter.com/YkQyewzAlk
— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) January 4, 2026

On paper, Sarr and Stojakovic are extremely dissimilar players (the highly skilled Illini wing is undoubtedly a better offensive player than Sarr), as each impacts the game in drastically different ways.

But based on the makeup of Illinois’ roster, it’s hard to argue against Sarr being a better fit. On offense, he is one fewer ball-dominant player (the Illini already have enough in Wagler, Kylan Boswell and David Mirkovic), and also rates as a better perimeter shooter than Stojakovic.

In that same vein, the Illini offense doesn’t really need any help – but the defense does. Illinois has been dissected by every high-level lead guard it has played, but Sarr’s presence would have helped put a swift end to that.

Dame defense is different pic.twitter.com/NGqSGELaev
— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) January 11, 2026

Again, it was impossible to know how outstanding Sarr would be on that end so quickly, along with predicting Wagler’s breakout as an offensive star (reducing the need for Stojakovic’s creation). But even if you can't fault Underwood and his staff for their decision – while also recognizing that Stojakovic is a fine player – that doesn’t mean Illini fans can’t wonder about what might have been had Sarr wound up in Champaign.