One of the biggest stars in men’s college basketball is headed to Kansas.
Hunter Dickinson, arguably the highest-profile transfer in the portal era and perhaps even all time, brought his high-stakes recruitment to an end Thursday by picking Bill Self and Kansas over a long list of suitors that also included Kentucky, Villanova, Maryland and Georgetown. The 7'1" big man, an All-American in 2021, has up to two years of eligibility remaining should he elect to use his extra year.
Dickinson’s recruitment was something of a circus with a distinct NBA free-agency feel, unlike anything we’ve seen in college basketball. Fans posted blurry, zoomed-in pictures of Dickinson from a distance as he arrived for visits at the five schools he toured. Message board speculation was rampant. Hometown school Maryland hired his former high school coach, Mike Jones, away from Virginia Tech during the process. Dickinson played his cards close to his chest throughout, with even the coaches involved in the recruitment not having much sense of where he was going until the very end.
