Tyrone Appleton, whose Midland (Texas) College basketball team has already won one junior college national championship and is a contender to repeat this year, has decided to attend Kansas University with one goal in mind – an NCAA crown.
“It doesn’t matter if I am scoring, getting teammates involved or playing defense. I just want to win a national championship,” 6-foot-3, 190-pound sophomore point guard Appleton said Monday after orally committing to Bill Self’s KU program.
He chose KU over finalists Iowa State and Kentucky, picking a Jayhawk hat off a table with three hats and placing it on his head at an afternoon news conference at his school.
“I will do whatever it takes to win, whatever the coaching staff wants me to do,” added Appleton, who also considered Texas, Indiana, Texas A&M and Kansas State.
Appleton, 21, who averages 12.5 points, 5.3 assists, 2.3 rebounds and 1.7 steals for 26-3 Midland College, spent his junior year at Roosevelt High in Gary, Ind., then spent his senior year (2004-05) on the postgraduate team at Bridgeton Academy in Maine. He was a fifth-year senior at Harmony Community School in Cincinnati, where he averaged 19.5 points a game.
He signed with Virginia Tech, but failed to qualify academically and has spent two seasons at Midland College, where he’s emerged as Rivals.com’s No. 3-ranked juco player. KU signee Mario Little of Chipola (Fla.) CC is No. 1.
“The recruiting process was a very tough thing for me,” Appleton said. “I met a lot of good people during my visits (to KU, San Jose State and Iowa State and unofficial to Kentucky). All the schools recruiting me were good schools. I knew Kansas was the school for me during my last unofficial visit.”
He was unable to make it to Lawrence in time for KU’s game against Nebraska on his official visit (Jan. 26-27), then returned for the 110 Years of KU Basketball Celebration game against Colorado on Feb. 16.
“The players, coaches and tradition are some of the things that stood out to me,” Appleton said.
He liked the fact that Self – not any assistants – initiated his recruitment last semester.
“Bill Self is actually the one who contacted me when they first started recruiting me. He came to watch me play and I didn’t even know he was in the stands until after the game,” Appleton said.
Appleton liked Self and KU’s players so much he shrugged off some travel problems on his unofficial visit.
“Because of bad weather he was stuck at the airport from 4 in the morning until 3 p.m.,” said Appleton’s dad, Dr. James Dye, a physician in the Gary, Ind., area. “He’s been in Texas two years so there was some climate shock. I told him, ‘You’re a Midwest kid. You know about winter,”’ Dye added with a laugh.
Dye coached Appleton’s Sports Youth Foundation AAU team.
“Ty is best at distributing the ball and getting everyone involved. If I had to describe his game, I would use the term, ‘defense,'” Dye said of Appleton, who likes to drive to the goal with shooting range out to 15-feet. “He prides himself on defense. Even as a young guy, he learned defense before he focused on offense.”
“I am known as a lockdown defender,” Appleton said.
Self cannot comment on the Appleton commitment until the April signing period.
