New-look roster a sign of the times for KU men’s basketball
‘Transfer portal era’ brings infusion of talent to complement returning stars.
One of the joys of following KU men’s basketball is watching coach Bill Self solve the annual puzzle of assembling his ’Hawks into their most effective combinations. It’s a process he seems to relish, putting his big basketball brain to work noodling with lineups through the nonconference season, fine-tuning until about Valentine’s Day, and then, fingers crossed, plowing through the postseason with every player in his optimal role.
Self’s success at navigating the challenging process is a big reason why he’s in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. But now that players are more free to transfer to other programs, the challenge is unprecedented: Self’s roster includes nine newcomers, only three of whom are freshmen.
“When you look at your team,” Self says, “do you look at experience or do you look at newbies? I would say you could make a case for still looking at them as newcomers, even though they’ve been in another college program for a couple of years. I think we are old, but I also think we’re inexperienced in the way we do things.”
While fans will surely be enthralled with the new-car vibe of the 2025 lineup, the keys remain 7-foot-2 center Hunter Dickinson and 6-2 point guard Dajuan Harris Jr., both graduate students, and 6-7 senior forward KJ Adams Jr.
Dickinson—named Big 12 Preseason Player of the Year for the second consecutive season—earned his undergraduate degree at Michigan, following his third season with the Wolverines. Now in his second year at Kansas, Dickinson, who has played 127 career games, finds himself one of the team’s old players, both literally and figuratively.
“In the transfer portal era,” Dickinson says, “it’s funny how quickly you go from being the new guy to being a vet.”
Harris, c’23, is also in his second season as a graduate student. Unlike Dickinson, all of his previous 140 games have been at KU, and Harris says he’s never been tempted to test the transfer portal.
“I have blood, sweat and tears in this program,” he says. “Even when we brought in other guards throughout the years, I wasn’t going to transfer like a lot of people do when their teams bring in great players. Coach Self gave me a shot. I was an academic redshirt, so I had a story. He actually changed my life, so I’ve got to pay the respect due to him for looking out for me.”
Adams, in his fourth season, is a playmaking forward who electrifies Allen Field House with his muscular moves; he says he spent the offseason trying to complement his power game by “tweaking some little things, like the jump shot, trying to find more ways to score.” More crucial, though, are the leadership responsibilities that have fallen to him as KU tries to live up to its preseason No. 1 ranking.
“It can only happen if Juan, Hunter and I all take that next step and actually start leading more than we did last year,” Adams says. “Last year I felt like we weren’t the best leaders that we could have been, at least on my part, so having that to learn from, and having the opportunity to have one more year, it makes everything a lot better.”
Prominent among the newcomers are 6-6 junior AJ Storr, a Wisconsin transfer named to the Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year Watch List; 6-4 senior guard Zeke Mayo, a Lawrence High alumnus and South Dakota State transfer named to the Jerry West Shooting Guard of the Year Watch List; 6-1 graduate guard Shakeel Moore, who spent three seasons at Mississippi State after starting out at North Carolina State; and 6-6 junior guard Rylan Griffen, coming off two years at Alabama.
“The thing that stands out to me more than anything is probably just options,” Self says. “We have more bodies, more athletes. I think we’re a much better shooting team, and I think we’ve helped ourselves athletically, for sure.”
Chris Lazzarino, j’86, is associate editor of Kansas Alumni magazine.
Photos by Steve Puppe
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