Nearly six years after he first committed to Kansas prior to his sophomore year of high school, multiple high schools and three colleges later, Tre White is joining the Jayhawks.
The Journal-World confirmed the news of the transfer on Saturday afternoon with White’s agency, Seros Partners.
KU will be White’s fourth school in four years in four separate power conferences. His initial high-school commitment to the Jayhawks back in 2019 lasted just six months, and he ended instead up playing college ball for USC, Louisville, and most recently Illinois.
This time, he chose KU over Cincinnati, Mississippi State, Oklahoma, St. John’s and a prospective return to USC, according to a top-six list he had recently released on Wednesday.
A big wing at 6-foot-7 and 210 pounds whom his Illinois teammates regarded as a “glue guy,” White averaged 10.5 points on 50.5% shooting to go with 5.5 rebounds for the Illini, starting 31 of the 32 games he played.
In all, White has 86 career starts to his name as he was an immediate contributor for both USC as a freshman, where he was a member of the Pac-12 all-freshman team, and Louisville as a sophomore, where he posted his best statistical campaign with 12.3 points and 5.9 rebounds in a career-high 31.6 minutes per game.
White was one of nearly a dozen Cardinals to leave Louisville after the firing of former head coach Kenny Payne.
His best games at Illinois came against conference competition. He scored 23 points and grabbed eight rebounds in just 29 minutes of an 86-80 victory over Wisconsin on Dec. 10; in a three-game stretch in early March, he averaged 20.3 points and 8.3 boards while also shooting 8-for-12 from beyond the arc. On the season, he shot 32.9% from deep on a fairly low volume of 70 attempts.
White’s commitment closely follows that of Loyola-Chicago guard Jayden Dawson, who officially signed with the Jayhawks on Saturday morning, as KU coach Bill Self called him “a great start to our portal signing” in a press release.
As it happens, White played his final year of high school basketball at Prolific Prep, the same California-based powerhouse for which KU’s marquee freshman Darryn Peterson just wrapped up his season.
AP Photo/Craig Pessman
