No star recruits? Kansas built this season’s basketball roster a little differently.
The blue bloods will battle again Tuesday night in the Champions Classic.
Kentucky and Kansas face off in Indianapolis in another edition of a rivalry that has — in recent years — been a showcase for some of the nation’s most highly touted young players.
UK will hold up its end with the nation’s No. 1 freshman class — led by top 10 prospects Brandon Boston Jr. and Terrence Clarke — and a roster that features six former top 50 national recruits.
Kansas — certainly no stranger to high-profile recruitments and five-star players — has built its 2020-21 roster a little differently. Neither of the Jayhawks’ top two scorers through the first two games of the season was a top 100 national recruit. Only one player on the entire roster was a five-star player coming out of high school, and just two were top 50 recruits nationally.
Over the past four recruiting cycles, KU’s classes have ranked 22nd, 15th, fifth and ninth, and the commitments responsible for those top 10 classes are largely gone from the program. It appears this will be a Jayhawks’ squad with no one-and-done players, and — possibly — no NBA picks, at least in next year’s draft.
Still, Kansas has another formidable team and came into this season ranked No. 6 nationally.
Here’s how the Jayhawks ranked as recruits (according to the 247sports composite numbers):
Christian Braun
Ranking: No. 130 in class of 2019
Hometown: Burlington, Kan.
KU’s leading scorer through the first two games was a touted high school player — the 6-foot-6 guard won Gatorade state player of the year honors in 2019 — but his standing as a recruit was less lofty. Braun’s 247Sports recruiting profile projected him as a player that “should develop into a quality contributor in college.” He’s already exceeded those expectations, earning Big 12 all-freshman team honors last season and averaging a team-high 19 points and 5.5 rebounds in 32 minutes per game so far this season. He’s made seven of 11 three-point attempts through two games. (UK has made six as a team through two games). Braun chose Kansas — where his father played — over Missouri, where his brother was a walk-on and his mother played college basketball.
Ochai Agbaji
Ranking: No. 132 in class of 2018
Hometown: Kansas City, Mo.
Another local product ranked outside the national top 100 as a recruit, Agbaji committed to the Jayhawks just days after earning a KU scholarship offer relatively late in the 2018 cycle. He had averaged just 6.4 points in Nike travel ball the summer before and was more of an afterthought in a KU recruiting class that featured McDonald’s All-American guards Devon Dotson and Quentin Grimes. Still, Agbaji started the final 16 games of his freshman season, returned as a starter last season and is averaging 17.5 points in 32.5 minutes per game this season. The other schools he most seriously considered as a recruit were Texas A&M and Wisconsin.
Marcus Garrett
Ranking: No. 55 in class of 2017
Hometown: Dallas, Texas
A versatile, physical guard, Garrett is in his fourth season for the Jayhawks and excels on both ends of the floor — earning national defensive player of the year honors last season while still averaging 9.2 points per game. He’s averaging 13.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 2.0 steals per game this season while playing a team-high 66 minutes so far. He’s also the only KU player on ESPN’s preseason 2021 NBA mock draft — coming in at No. 47 overall. Garrett was ranked outside the national top 100 until a series of breakout performances with top scouts in attendance the summer before his senior year. He did not play on one of the major shoe company circuits. By the time of his commitment, his list of scholarship offers included Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Texas and UConn, among others.
Jalen Wilson
Ranking: No. 53 in class of 2019
Hometown: Denton, Texas
Wilson was actually on the verge of five-star status midway through his junior season before settling back around the 50ish range. He had originally signed with Michigan but backed off of that after Wolverines head coach John Beilein left for the NBA. The 6-8 wing took official visits to Kansas and North Carolina before making a decision the summer after his senior year. Former 247Sports national analyst Evan Daniels wrote before his senior season that Wilson would have a chance to be a first-round NBA draft pick with further development. His college career got off to a rough start: a broken ankle early last season that led to a redshirt year. So far this season, Wilson is averaging 12.5 points and a team-high 6.5 rebounds in 23 minutes per game.
Bryce Thompson
Ranking: No. 21 in class of 2020
Hometown: Tulsa, Okla.
Thompson — a 6-5 guard — was the gem of Kansas’ 2020 recruiting class and is the top-ranked high school prospect on the Jayhawks’ roster. (No current KU players were considered top 20 national recruits coming out of high school). Thompson was a star scorer on the Under Armour travel circuit and was briefly linked to Kentucky, though the Wildcats never seriously pursued his recruitment or came close to extending a scholarship offer. He led the UA circuit in scoring and was viewed as an elite outside shooter. North Carolina, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State were his other finalists. He’s off to a good start in college, averaging 9.5 points in 24.5 minutes per game, getting the start in place of Wilson in KU’s most recent game.
David McCormack
Ranking: No. 36 in class of 2018
Hometown: Norfolk, Va.
Another player that Kentucky took a look at as a recruit but seemingly never came close to offering, McCormack was one of the best big men in a 2018 class light on impact post players. He played his last two seasons of high school ball at Oak Hill Academy (Va.) and was one of the better frontcourt players on the Adidas circuit. Listed now at 6-10 and 265 pounds, McCormack has always been a physical force in the paint. Duke and Oklahoma State were among the other schools seen as possible landing spots at various times throughout his recruitment. He started the final 13 games of his freshman season and started 18 games as a sophomore. With Kansas often playing a four-guard lineup this season, he’s the main contributor in the paint — averaging 8.0 points and 4.5 rebounds in 15.5 minutes per game so far this season.
Tristan Enaruna
Ranking: No. 64 in the class of 2019
Hometown: Almere, Flevoland, Netherlands
An intriguing international player in the 2019 class, Enaruna got lots of looks from teams around the country — and was briefly ranked inside the top 50 nationally by 247Sports — before ultimately picking KU over Creighton and Miami late in the ’19 recruiting cycle. He’s a big, skilled, athletic wing with a lot of upside, but he still has a ways to go to live up to that possible NBA Draft potential. He averaged 10.8 minutes per game as a freshman and is averaging 5.5 points and 2.0 rebounds in 10.5 minutes per game so far this season.
Mitch Lightfoot
Ranking: No. 116 in the class of 2016
Hometown: Gilbert, Ariz.
Lightfoot was a high school star in Arizona, but he was born in Kansas City and grew up a Jayhawks fan. He never cracked the top 100 nationally as a recruit, but he was always seen as a promising prospect and chose KU over offers from Arizona, Stanford, St. John’s and Utah. The 6-8 forward was seen as a strong rebounder and shooter coming out of high school. He’s contributed in each of his previous three seasons — Lightfoot sat out as a redshirt last year — but he’s never averaged more than four points or 14 minutes per game. Through two games this season, he’s averaging 2.5 points and 3.0 rebounds in 7.0 minutes per game.
Tyon Grant-Foster
Ranking: No. 2 juco player in class of 2020
Hometown: Kansas City, Kan.
A versatile, athletic 6-7 guard from inside the state, Grant-Foster was ranked as the No. 2 junior college prospect in the country last season (though his 247Sports grade would have put him only around No. 65-70 nationally if he were a high school recruit). He did not have a star ranking while in high school but had accumulated several high-level scholarship offers — Arkansas, LSU, Miami and Oregon among them — following a season of junior college ball. He’s struggled in the early going at KU, averaging 2.5 points in 11.0 minutes per game while going 2-for-7 from the field and 1-for-3 from three-point range.
Dajuan Harris
Ranking: No. 94 in class of 2019
Hometown: Columbia, Mo.
Two days after helping Mokan Elite win the Nike Peach Jam title, Harris announced his commitment to Kansas and reclassified to 2019 (though he still sat out last season as a redshirt). The 6-1 guard had been committed to Missouri State for nearly a year before picking the Jayhawks. He shot up the recruiting rankings in that final summer on the Nike circuit and was viewed as a promising point guard — both as a facilitator and as a defender — for the college level. He practiced with Kansas during the second semester of last season and made his college debut last week. Harris played just three minutes in KU’s loss to Gonzaga before playing 15 minutes in a win over Saint Joseph’s — dishing out a team-high five assists to go with three rebounds and two steals in that one.
