Charlie Moore said he was leaving Cal to be closer to his hometown of Chicago. Sam Cunliffe never hesitated to mention how much he missed his family in Seattle before he left Arizona State. As former four-star recruits, both players would have been welcomed with open arms at schools back home, be it Illinois or DePaul for Moore or Washington for Cunliffe.
Kansas basketball has turned into Transfer U
The Jayhawks have landed five elite transfers in the last calendar year. It shows Bill Self is always willing to try something new.
Photo by Ed Zurga/Getty Images
Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
They both wound up at Kansas instead.
The transfer market used to be seen as a shortcut in the weird world of college basketball recruiting, a place where mid-tier schools found unhappy players because they couldn’t land top talent out of high school. That’s not the case anymore. Just ask Bill Self.
The only way to stay on top in this sport is to evolve and adapt. John Calipari figured that out a decade ago by embracing one-and-dones following an NBA rule change that barred high school players from entering the draft. Gonzaga went from mid-major to national power by recruiting outside of the U.S., with success stories like Ronny Turiaf, Domantas Sabonis, and Przemek Karnowski dotting the program’s transformation. Plenty of schools have taken advantage of grad transfers as a one-year Band-Aid to cover up a hole on the roster.
College coaches are always looking for the next inefficiency in the recruiting market. Self thinks he’s found it by targeting and securing the best transfers in the country.
It started a year ago when Malik Newman committed to Kansas following one season at Mississippi State. Newman was an elite recruit in every sense: The No. 8 player RSCI for the class of 2015 and an 11.3-point-per-game scorer in the SEC as a freshman. If he was leaving the Bulldogs after one season, chances were he was going to the NBA. Self got him to sit out a year and then play for the Jayhawks instead.
Kansas has only doubled down on transfers in the last four months. Cunliffe is a 6’6 shooter who will be ideal in the LaGerald Vick/Svi Mykhailiuk role in Self’s new small-ball offense. Moore was quietly brilliant as a freshman for Cal, averaging 12.3 points and 3.5 assists per game while showcasing the ability to score from all three levels. It’s easy to envision him in a two-point guard backcourt like the Frank Mason-DeVonte Graham pairing KU had so much success with this past season.
Then there’s the Lawson brothers. Dedric and K.J. had some of the most publicized recruitments out of the class of 2015, with former Memphis coach Josh Pastner putting their father on staff to secure their commitments. The Tigers didn’t win much during the Lawsons’ two seasons on campus, but there’s no doubting their talent.
Dedric is the big catch. He’s a 6’9, 235-pound forward with an inside-out game perfect for the four. He averaged 19.2 points, 9.9 rebounds, and 2.1 blocks per game as a sophomore and could turn into one of the most productive players in the country under Self. K.J. also brings value as a 6’7 wing who does a little bit of everything. He put up 12.3 points, 8.1 rebounds, and 2.8 assists per game this past season.
Getting transfers isn’t a replacement for going after one-and-dones; if anything, it’s a way to supplement them. Self has been as good as anyone this side of Calipari and Mike Krzyzewski at bringing in top freshman talent, with Joel Embiid, Andrew Wiggins, and now Josh Jackson showing KU can develop top NBA picks.
For Self, banking on transfers is a way of putting those one-and-dones in a better position to succeed. When Cunliffe, Moore, and the Lawsons finally debut for the Jayhawks, they will all have a year of practice under their belts. In a sport with so much annual turnover, there’s no discounting how big that extra practice time will be.
Bringing in transfers won’t guarantee Kansas more success in March. In a single-elimination tournament, nothing will. What it does show is Self is constantly challenging himself to keep the Jayhawks at the top. He’s not satisfied with Big 12 titles every year and an annual parade of McDonald’s All-Americans.
It would be easy for anyone to get complacent in Self’s position, but instead he continues to look for new ways to push the program forward. He’s seen Kansas come up short in the postseason too many times to keep running it back. College basketball has always been about finding and maximizing every little advantage you can. If this doesn’t work, you know Self will find something else in a few years.
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