With Marcus Adams Jr.’s departure, the Kansas men’s basketball roster is now as thin as it has been at any point this summer, and it’s almost August.
No need to panic — the Jayhawks’ remaining group of scholarship players still has a case to be the best in the country — but 10 scholarship athletes don’t provide much protection against a possible injury, especially when one, Zach Clemence, is seemingly guaranteed to redshirt, and another could potentially do so as well, as coach Bill Self suggested Monday.
KU retains some depth at guard, particularly in light of Self’s recent reiteration that sophomore Arterio Morris will participate fully in all team activities going forward despite a pending trial for misdemeanor assault. With freshman Elmarko Jackson expected to carve out significant minutes and potentially challenge Morris and sixth-year transfer Nick Timberlake for a starting role, that would leave Jamari McDowell as a redshirt option, with Parker Braun as the lone remaining bench player at his forward spot.
The most apparent hole is on the wing. The 6-foot-6 fifth-year senior Kevin McCullar Jr. has staked his claim to the “3” spot, and Self has praised his offseason improvement following his decision to return to Kansas, but it’s not clear who will fill in there during the 10 or so minutes each game that he’s on the bench. We could see some smaller units with Timberlake sliding over and both Harris and Morris or both Harris and Jackson in the game, but those could be pretty undersized, especially against teams that plant their small forwards in the post more often than Kansas does.
The current roster also puts a lot of responsibility on Braun’s shoulders in terms of spelling both KJ Adams Jr. at power forward and Hunter Dickinson at center. Braun spent three years at Missouri, but the majority of his on-court experience came against a much different level of competition at Santa Clara in the West Coast Conference. Despite his athleticism, he hasn’t been a high-volume scoring option throughout his career, tallying just 7.7 points per game his last year with the Broncos, and contributes as a shot-blocker and rebounder.
I’m not quite as worried about this situation, though, because Dickinson will rarely come off the floor. Even when he does, I could easily see McCullar earning some minutes at the “4” spot, where I think he’d acquit himself well, with Adams taking on the undersized center role in which he was so effective last year.
Marcus Adams wouldn’t have gotten much playing time as a tall wing, but he certainly provided insurance for a rather precariously constructed rotation. It’s also worth noting that even before his departure, the Jayhawks were still considering expanding their roster but missed out on UCF transfer guard Ithiel Horton, who was expected to visit Kansas when he decided to join Texas instead. Then, Harvard standout Chris Ledlum, a late reentry in the portal after a brief stint at Tennessee and a forward Self called “probably the best player on the court until the very end” when the Crimson visited Allen Fieldhouse in December, committed to St. John’s Wednesday.
With that in mind, here are my brief thoughts on some remaining candidates for a last-minute addition.
Johnny Furphy: This is the player who’s been all the rage in KU circles recently, and it’s easy to see why given that his film is peppered with highlight-reel dunks, and as a 6-foot-8 small forward, he slots in pretty perfectly to the current Jayhawk roster. The Australian has length, he can shoot, he can defend and he did all those things well enough at the NBA Global Academy and Sportradar Showdown earlier this month to earn an avalanche of Division I offers, including, reportedly, from KU.
It goes without saying that the Jayhawks have the program tradition to land and develop a prospect like this, but the sheer number of competitors for Furphy could make it a challenge. There’s also an administrative hurdle to jump in that Furphy had reclassified from 2023 to 2024 and would have to switch back. Furphy told Travis Branham of 247Sports that he had wanted to develop his body and his play style with an extra year before heading to college and had already seen “a bit of improvement.” Perhaps the sudden flood of NCAA interest will change his mind on the need for more development. (Though it’s worth noting that if signed for this year, he’d come into Kansas as a pretty raw player.)
Others: There had been some talk that Ketraleus “Bo” Aldridge, a local combo guard from Topeka, might pull a similar maneuver to what is now being discussed with Furphy: un-reclassify from 2024 and become eligible to play immediately. But as impressive as Aldridge has been with the Trae Young AAU team in recent months, the fit at KU this year doesn’t make sense at that position, especially for a player who has only earned a three-star rating and has garnered the majority of his scholarship offers from mid-major schools. Adding him wouldn’t be without merit, but it wouldn’t have any impact on a prospective 2023-24 rotation, so I don’t quite see the reason to rush to have him join the team this year.
Memphis transfer Malcolm Dandridge, a 6-foot-9 forward who started just 14 games across four seasons with the Tigers, told The Portal Report earlier in the offseason that he had received interest from Kansas, but so much has changed on the Jayhawks’ roster since that May 22 tweet. In recent days Dandridge has emerged as a target of Michigan.
Memphis Tigers forward Malcolm Dandridge (23) dunks against Florida Atlantic in the second half of a first-round college basketball game in the NCAA Tournament Friday, March 17, 2023, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
More speculatively, lists of players currently available in the transfer portal, such as that of On3, do not inspire much confidence. Power forward Carte’are Gordon, who transferred out of Grambling following a strong season, was once a target of Self’s staff coming out of high school in 2018 but has played a mere 42 games at four different schools since then. Another journeyman, the 6-foot-5 high-scoring shooting guard Jose Perez, is back on the market following Bob Huggins’ exit at West Virginia, one of several coaching changes Perez has experienced during his lengthy collegiate career, but hasn’t had any reported interest from Kansas and would likely face a similar logjam to Aldridge.
Dealing in past interest isn’t all that informative, because Furphy came out of nowhere to become the top candidate for a spot at Kansas. There could be another player to break out like him tomorrow.
Chance Parker
