What's going on here exactly
Yesterday I cruised through CJ Moore’s latest dispatch about KU in the portal era. Here’s the basic vibe:
This spring was a chance to hit reset and consider a different approach to the portal.
“Recruit fits rather than talent,” Self told The Athletic last week. “I think on paper, there’s been some things that have been done that were more popular in the short term, but did they actually fit as well on how you wanted to play?”
Self is a good talker. Nothing new to comment on there — he’s good at reading the comments, reading the room, reading the temperature of the fanbase. Always has been. He’s as good at that as he is at coaching, or something like that.
However, I thought this entire “attitude adjustment” felt a little… distanced. He’s the one who built these underperforming teams, after all. Anyone watching KU saw that they were deficient of consistent shooting, defensive effort and above all talent. Despite re-securing Flory Bidunga, steering Darryn Peterson to Lawrence and keeping Bryson Tiller in Lawrence, this offseason has been a real mixed bag, once again.
Many outlets have reported KU is honing in on Texas Tech transfer Darrien Williams, a nice player that re-opened his portal recruitment by backing out of the NBA Draft process. That’s all well-and-good, feels like low-hanging fruit. The math looks fine. This is what you have to do in the portal now.
Call me crazy — I’m having a… difficult time wrapping my head around cobbling together millions to secure the projected 39th pick. Williams could hypothetically lift his profile at Kansas, working with Bill Self, a guy who can take a local kid and prepare him well enough to be knocking on the door of a $30M/year payday. The track record is there. So is a decent recent history of putting players on the map during their final campaign at Kansas, whether it was Ochai Agbaji, Jalen Wilson or Kevin McCullar. McC and Williams are different players, but we’ve seen a productive Tech forward make a leap at Kansas.
I’m zooming out, but wasn’t AJ Storr also a productive player at a decent program? Rylen Griffen? We’re banking on some buy-in to Self’s ideaology here. I’m not quite ready to do that.
Last week, KU face-planted a little bit by letting Spanish prospect Dame Sarr verbally commit to (allegedly) find a better offer at Duke (allegedly). Not exactly a great look from Sarr, who has basically left his second big program (FC Barcelona being the other one) in as many months. However, this is the marketplace incentive right now. Sarr’s loyalty was to the moolah. It’s disappointing, but it’s not confusing.
Kansas looks bad, too. For someone who has the reputation of a dealmaker and a don, Self hasn’t gotten some big ones across the line. Maybe the fit just isn’t there, but potential assistant coach Jacque Vaughn still doesn’t have a contract he’s happy with. Our fanbase’s fantasy of a super-team around Darryn Peterson isn’t coming. Self has looked old lately, and it’s not a stretch to imagine that he’s exhausted from the past few years of health issues and portal cycles. I’m tabbing this for now.
Let’s end abruptly with something positive — KU Corbin from KC???!! Let’s go!