Kansas freshman Johnny Furphy, against Texas on Feb. 24, turned in the sort of 16-point, eight-rebound performance that had become almost routine for him as a first-year college athlete — just two years after the Australian Centre of Excellence discovered him playing for his state’s second-team under-20 squad, and about six months after he had first moved to the United States to play for the Jayhawks — and got asked postgame what he thought about being KU’s latest fan favorite.
“It’s pretty cool to have a bit of attention, but I think it’s just because people think I’m weird, from a different country,” he said sheepishly, as teammate KJ Adams tried and failed to stifle a laugh at the microphone next to him. “I don’t think many people know much about Australia.”
The unassuming freshman may have begun that way, just a lanky, fresh-faced stranger from across the world, but quickly proved himself far more than a novelty. Early on, Furphy showed flashes of the above-the-rim offense combined with shooting acumen that had made him the hottest of hot commodities at the NBA Academy Games over the summer — back when he was still planning to wait another year to go to college — but didn’t fully come into his own until he entered the starting lineup on Jan. 13.
It took just three weeks to the day before KU coach Bill Self was on postgame radio after a win over Houston, calling Furphy “one of the best players in our league.”
And after another month, particularly with injuries wearing down some of KU’s veterans, the freshman may be the key to a tournament run for the embattled Jayhawks.
How did it happen?
Kansas guard Johnny Furphy (10) puts up a three against Manhattan during the first half on Friday Nov. 10, 2023 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug
At first he was a 3-point specialist for a team desperate to space the floor and create some room for Adams and Dickinson, particularly with Nick Timberlake underperforming. In the first eight games of his career, 26 of the 33 shots he attempted were from beyond the arc.
“It’s definitely been a new role for me, definitely haven’t been that kind of player in my career so far,” he said in early December. “But I think I’m enjoying it. I think I’m liking the shots I’m taking.”
Self suggested that day that the niche Furphy had found was more a product of the time it would take for him to settle in.
“He doesn’t have a shooter’s role and not a ‘be aggressive’ role too,” he said, “but he’ll probably be more aggressive as he gets more comfortable.”
The very next day after those comments, it felt like Furphy revealed another portion of his game to the world when he scored twice in transition in the final minutes of a win over Kansas City.
Kansas guard Johnny Furphy (10) swoops in for a bucket during the second half against Kansas City on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug
That is in fact how it’s felt all year and particularly since he entered the starting lineup: The first-year player, who started out months behind his teammates when he arrived in August and had his progress hampered even further by recurring, severe shin splints, started to unlock new attributes on a daily basis, like a player-created character in a video game.
First came the rebounding. In his second start of conference play Furphy grabbed seven rebounds at Oklahoma State, which he quickly followed with seven more at West Virginia — a game in which he had six in the first half and no one else grabbed more than one. The freshman became more and more adept at putting his 6-foot-9 length and straight-line speed to good use and finding good angles at which to crash the boards. Two days later, as his parents took in Allen Fieldhouse for the first time, he practically put the Jayhawks on his back with a 23-point, 11-rebound double-double against Cincinnati, one of the nation’s best rebounding teams.
“I think he’s a much better rebounder than what I envisioned him being, and I think he’s a much better loose-ball guy than I envisioned him being,” Self said.
Kansas guard Johnny Furphy (10) competes for a ball between Cincinnati guard Josh Reed (10) and Cincinnati forward Jamille Reynolds (13) during the first half on Monday, Jan. 22, 2024 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug
Then came a bit of a defensive uptick. For much of the winter opposing guards looking to create their own shot would look for one-on-one matchups against Furphy, either hoping to win some space from the freshman for a 3-pointer or blow by him for a straight-line drive. Against Baylor, though, he was the aggressor, making it hard for the Bears to even get the ball anywhere in the first place; he had six steals after 12 combined the rest of the season.
And in perhaps the most comical bit of quick development yet, three days after Texas coach Rodney Terry said of Furphy, “He’s a young player — you got to try to make him put it on the deck a little bit,” the freshman was voluntarily driving to the basket and attempting to draw contact against BYU — even if it didn’t always work.
Indeed, to be clear, it hasn’t always been a linear upward trajectory for Furphy. While his defense has generally gotten better, he was so ineffective on that side of the ball at Baylor in March — facing the same team he had victimized weeks earlier — that he had to spend most of the second half on the bench.
And in a frustrating road loss at Kansas State on Feb. 5, the freshman was held to four points on 2-for-7 shooting, one of the first signs that, as Self noted postgame, “people will get a book on everybody, and with all the success that he’s had, obviously his book’s grown”; in fact, Furphy really didn’t have his shot for much of the month of February as he went 8-for-28 from deep after 16-for-45 the previous month.
But part of what has truly been so impressive about him is that those setbacks haven’t erased his production completely. He still averaged 12.3 points per game in February, in part because he was dunking on people and getting to the free-throw line. Against Texas — the game that prompted him to say people liked him because they thought it was weird that he was from Australia — he had 16 points on just three shots because he went 9-for-11 at the line. This was a player who attempted four total free throws in the first 10 games of his career.
It all prompts the question: What will he do next?
There may come a time in March when Furphy needs to take over a game. That’s a big ask for a freshman playing in a starting lineup with two national champions and a pair of All-American candidates.
And to some extent Furphy is ideal as a complementary piece for those guys, particularly Adams. It seems to me there’s a reason, or a multitude of reasons, Self paired the two together when he implemented his hockey-style line changes in late February. Not just that they had more stamina and could stay in the game longer through the first substitutions, but also because — to an outside observer — Furphy can shoot while Adams makes teams pack the paint, Furphy isn’t strong yet and Adams is as strong as it gets, Furphy defends opponents smaller than he is and Adams defends taller players, Furphy rebounds better than you would expect for his size and Adams worse and Furphy is at least outwardly collected while Adams is openly and unapologetically emotional. That’s the sort of synergy you look for.
Kansas forward K.J. Adams Jr. (24) and Kansas guard Johnny Furphy (10) high five during a run by the Jayhawks against Kansas State in the first half on Tuesday, March 5, 2024 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug
But while much of the discussion this year has been about what Furphy does for his teammates (spacing the floor out for Dickinson, cutting to receive Harris’ pinpoint passes and so on), and indeed the affection his teammates have for him is part of why he got in the starting lineup, if KU is to make a run, there will be a game in March where the script will flip and the freshman will become the focal point. Maybe it’ll be like Cincinnati in that he’ll need to crash the boards to contest an aggressive rebounding team and in turn find himself constantly around the rim. Maybe he’ll regain his hot shooting stroke from January and make more than three 3s in a game for the first time in his career. (Just once in conference play did a KU player make more than three 3s in a game; opposing players did it eight times.)
Or perhaps Furphy will again unlock some as-yet unrevealed skill, just in time for it to make the difference in a winner-take-all game. However that might manifest, it would hardly be a surprise at this point.
A postscript: The elephant in the room
The closer to transcendence Furphy is, the less likely he will be in Lawrence next season. Even with his lackluster conclusion to the regular season, his youth and quite clearly sky-high potential have made him shoot up draft boards in what seems to be universally regarded as a weak NBA draft class and emerge as an unlikely one-and-done prospect. Some mock drafts even placed him in the lottery.
While doing well for a prominent program like KU has already made him a shiny object for NBA evaluators, doing well for a prominent program like KU in the NCAA Tournament could rocket him into the stratosphere.
It is one of the essential paradoxes of high-level college basketball. The best way to ensure KU returns a capable wing on an otherwise virtually wingless post-Kevin McCullar Jr. 2024-25 roster would be for Furphy to be a nonfactor in the postseason. That would also be the best way to ensure that the 2023-24 season, already a bumpy ride, ends in disappointing fashion.
2024 NCAA Tournament Preview
A look at the rest of the Midwest Region
Why KU men’s basketball could or could not win the NCAA title
Forgotten regular-season moments
Venues, seeding could make for atypical postseason run
KU progresses toward milestones affected by IARP
Can Johnny Furphy come of age in the tournament?
