Former Kansas point guard Bobby Pettiford became the second member of the 2022-23 team to announce his new school on Monday.
Pettiford, who played two seasons at Kansas, will continue his college career at East Carolina in his home state of North Carolina.
He joins former KU big man Cam Martin in announcing his next stop. Martin, one of five players on last year’s team to enter the transfer portal after the season, announced last week that he was headed to Boise State for his final season of college basketball.
Pettiford had a decent-sized role during his two seasons with the Jayhawks, one of which earned him a national title ring, but he never could find a way to consistently crack the rotation.
He appeared in 32 of 36 games this season — averaging 12.1 minutes per contest — and played in 42 total games during his two seasons in Lawrence.
Once dubbed by KU coach Bill Self as a player who soon would take his spot as the next great guard to play for the Jayhawks, injuries prevented Pettiford’s career from ever really taking off.
To that end, Pettiford appears to be looking for a fresh start with the Pirates. In announcing his decision on Twitter on Monday afternoon, Pettiford posted three photos of himself in East Carolina purple and gold with the words, “Rebirth, ECU let’s do it,” accompanying the pictures.
With Martin and Pettiford announcing their future destinations, former Jayhawks Zach Clemence, MJ Rice and Joe Yesufu are still in the process of picking their next schools.
Those transfers along with the departures of Jalen Wilson, Kevin McCullar Jr. and Gradey Dick to the NBA has left KU coach Bill Self and company with at least three open scholarships to hand out to players in the transfer portal.
That number will jump to four if Kyle Cuffe Jr., who Self said last week was still in the process of making a decision about his future.
While several portal players have announced their future plans in the past couple of weeks, Kansas has not yet landed a commitment from anyone in the portal.
Some of that has been by design, as the KU coaching staff has been more deliberate and patient in deciding which players to pursue while also waiting to see who else might enter the portal. College basketball players have until May 11 to enter the portal, but there is no real deadline for them to make a decision about which schools they will attend.
Most of the decisions are expected to be made by late May or early June, since many schools have players report to campus for summer school and team workouts the first week of June.
Among the biggest names KU appears to be pursuing in the portal are Michigan big man Hunter Dickinson, Stanford wing Harrison Ingram
Multiple reports have indicated that KU has had contact with both players in the past week.
In addition to those two, KU recently hosted 6-foot-4 combo guard Nicolas Timberlake, of Towson, and has a visit scheduled with Georgetown transfer Primo Spears.
Timeberlake, a 41.6% 3-point shooter who averaged 17.7 points, 3.9 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game for Towson last season, is expected to visit UConn later this week.
https://twitter.com/BobbyPettiford/status/1645495468833611794
