The Jalen Wilson Post
Tonight, Jalen Wilson will have a senior speech. Though nominally a Junior, Wilson made up his mind before the season, during an offseason period where he absolutely busted his butt to address feedback from NBA personnel. And while Wilson didn’t link and build with an NBA All-Star, as Ochai Agbaji did, he got in the lab with training guru Peter Danyliv and added new dimensions to his game. Dimensions, plural. I’ve said it enough—Jalen Wilson’s improvement from last year’s title run has been remarkable. It’s time to give it its full due.
Jalen Wilson will be a first-team All-American, which means he is headed toward the AFH rafters. It’s an absolutely wild story.
That Wilson came to KU in the first place has a cosmic and accidental feeling to it. Though he had committed to Michigan, he was released from his LOI when John Beilein left to take the Cleveland Cavaliers coaching job. Wilson was extremely close with a high priority KU target, a Texas PG named R.J. Hampton, who leaned heavily toward KU late in the process. Wilson committed, but Hampton ended up playing overseas in the NBL. Hampton, in a slightly cruel twist, became a huge cheerleader of the program, and Wilson appeared to be left in the lurch.
Though Wilson was sold as a knockdown shooter, it was clear—once his medical redshirt season was over—that whatever story we’d been told wasn’t right, exactly. He floated around the floor, snatching rebounds from far superior athletes, like it was second nature. In rhythm, off the bounce, he had a great feel for what it takes to get a good look right at the rim, which is a shortcut to Bill Self’s heart. As a shooter he was … fine? He’s gotten better, but you still wouldn’t consider him as a player in the mold of your classic shooter archetype. He has attempted one dunk this year, and he missed it.
Though Wilson hasn’t repeated the crazy numbers he was pulling earlier in the season—it’s tiring carrying the entire half-court offense on one’s own—he has been, alongside McCullar, the guy who sets the tone for KU. His confidence trickles down everywhere. He’s leading the sports best conference in points and rebounds—he has 34 more rebounds than #2 on the Big 12 list, Keyontae Johnson. If his shot isn’t falling, he still impacts the game, but you already know that, having watched Wilson’s rebounding, fearlessness and pluck become an integral component in last year’s run to the ship.
For a player that will go in the rafters—Zach Edey is a virtual lock to win the Wooden, but Wilson has the second-best odds by a fair distance—Wilson’s trajectory through KU has been extremely strange. He came in as an afterthought, a transfer domino that didn’t strike the target. As a freshman, he broke his ankle 27 seconds after he checked in, which earned him a medical redshirt, and effectively kept him out of view. He’s never been an above-the-rim finisher, which is an anomaly for a Bill Self wing—his game is groundbound and involves craft, slightly reminiscent of undersung Hawks like Perry Ellis and Dedric Lawson.
Wilson has earned his flowers, though, and this leap in performance is just about the single-greatest year-to-year leap I’ve seen in the Self era. Tonight, he says goodbye. It’s been one hell of a ride.