After two seasons as a backup guard for the Kansas basketball program, Joe Yesufu is moving on in search of a new opportunity.
Yesufu officially entered the transfer portal on Thursday, becoming the fourth Jayhawk to do so since the end of the season.
Cam Martin, Bobby Pettiford and Zach Clemence all entered the portal earlier this week.
A 6-foot guard from Bolingbrook, Illinois, Yesufu initially came to Kansas following the 2020-21 season after a strong finish to the season with Drake.
He appeared in 69 games in his two seasons with the Jayhawks, with three starts. He averaged 4.1 points per game this season while shooting 37% from the floor and 29% from 3-point range.
Yesufu played 444 minutes this season after playing 314 minutes for the Jayhawks’ title team a season ago.
While he emerged as the Jayhawks’ sixth man for most of the most recent season, he still never made quite the impact that he or the program had hoped. Known as a fast and explosive guard with the potential to be a high-volume scorer at Drake, Yesufu struggled to consistently score at Kansas and was used for single-digit minutes off the bench as often as he played a bigger role.
Yesufu, who played this season as a junior, is on pace to graduate with a business degree this May and will have one year of eligibility remaining wherever he lands.
With Jalen Wilson, Kevin McCullar Jr. and now Clemence, Martin, Pettiford and Yesufu leaving this offseason, Kansas has room for the four incoming freshmen who will join the roster this summer — four-star guards/wings Elmarko Jackson, Jamari McDowell, Chris Johnson and Marcus Adams Jr. — and then some.
While they normally are allowed 13 scholarships per season, the Jayhawks could be down to 12 for the 2023-24 sea-son because of the self-imposed penalty tied to the Jayhawks’ NCAA infractions case that remains ongoing. The penalty, which was announced last November, indicated, among other things that KU would face a “reduction of three total scholar-ships in men’s basketball distributed over the next three years.”
Even with that, Kansas should be staring at the potential to add two more players to the roster before the 2023-24 season, and that number will grow if others follow those four transfer portal guys out the door.
Sources close to the program have told the Journal-World that they expect one or two more KU players to look to enter the portal, which has become a routine and popular part of the college basketball calendar at schools across the country in re-cent years.
In addition, freshman guard Gradey Dick has to weigh the decision of returning to KU or turning pro, as well.
