Friday quickly becomes huge day for KU hoops recruiting

By Matt Tait     Nov 11, 2013

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Kansas recruit Cliff Alexander, second from right, hangs out with members of the Kansas men's team Sunday afternoon at the Kansas women's season opening basketball game against Oral Roberts. Alexander's girlfriend plays for the women's team.

I’m sure our own Gary Bedore is all over this and will have more throughout the week, but since he’s in his hometown of Chicago getting ready for tomorrow night’s KU-Duke game, I figured I’d post this quickly so you guys were in the loop.

It looks like Friday will be a huge day for KU basketball recruiting, as three of the top prospects in the Class of 2014 reportedly will be announcing their decisions at 3 p.m.

They are Jahlil Okafor, Tyus Jones and Cliff Alexander. KU is in the running for all three of them and each made a visit to KU’s campus at some point during the process, with Alexander being the most recent to hit Lawrence, as he was here this past weekend.

The announcements will take place at their respective high schools and, as always, we’ll have all kinds of coverage and reaction right here at KUsports.com when the deals go down.

It’s hard to say exactly what will happen here. Okafor and Jones have spoken often of wanting to play college ball together and Alexander’s as talented as anyone, but it’s hard to imagine all three of them will pick the same school. Then again, you never know. And the timing of their announcements — same time, same day — certainly adds to the intrigue around their decisions.

Okafor, a 6-10, 270-pound center from Whitney Young High in Chicago, is ranked by Rivals.com as the No. 1 player in the class. Jones, a 6-1, 171-pound point guard from Apple Valley (MN) High is ranked fifth and the potential packaged deal represent two of KU’s top targets.

Alexander, a 6-8, 240-pound forward from Chicago’s Curie High, is ranked 4th in the class and has a final five of Kansas, Illinois, Michigan State, DePaul and Memphis.

Okafor’s final four is believed to be Baylor, Duke, Kansas and Kentucky, while Duke, Kansas and several others are in on Jones, as well.

All three are five-star prospects.

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.