KU Roster for 25-26
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Updated.
May as well look ahead to see what’s in store for next season.
I’ll try to keep track of the offseason drama here. I’ll keep this mostly official, so no portal projections here.
Roster size: 14 (includes ALL but DSA players. Normally it’s 15, but we lost one to NCAA sanctions)
Roster size at the moment: 13 (a bit sketchy given the DSA rules)
RETURNEES (4)
G Elmarko Jackson
G/F Jamari McDowell
PF Bryson Tiller
C Flory Bidunga
RETURNING WALK ONS? (3 – and potential “designated student athletes”)
G Wilder Evers
G Will Thengvall
F Justin Cross
IMCOMING FRESHMEN (5)
G Darryn Peterson
F Samis Calderon
G Corbin Allen – Oak Park High School
SG Kohl Rosario
C Paul Mbiya — not sure what year he is
PORTAL ADDITIONS (4)
G Jayden Dawson via Loyola Chicago. One year of eligibility left.
G/F Tre White via Illinois – previous stops at Louisville, USC. One year of eligibility left.
G Melvin Council Jr. via St. Bonaventure – previous stop at Wagner. One year of eligibility left.
PG Nginyu Ngala via Canada. he’s like 28 years old! Likely a senior.
BIG QUESTION MARK (1)
SF Jaden Nickens – A football player who may play hoops. May have to count against the roster before the season begins.
HAVE ENTERED PORTAL (6 —Bidunga initially entered, but will return)
G/F AJ Storr – signed with Ole Miss
G/F Rylan Griffen — signed with Texas AM
G/F Rakease Passmore — signed with Maryland
PF/C Zach Clemence – signed with Texas A&M
G David Coit – signed with Maryland
G Noah Shelby
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Anybody have the scoop on Jaden Nickens? Will he play both football and basketball?
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@rockchalkjayhawk Thanks for posting this with updates
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@rockchalkjayhawk said in KU Roster for 25-26:
One roster spot to go. Will we fill it?
Would love a wing in that spot.
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@rockchalkjayhawk said in KU Roster for 25-26:
Anybody have the scoop on Jaden Nickens? Will he play both football and basketball?
Right now, it sounds like he won’t be playing basketball this upcoming season based on what the KC Star wrote in their article on Ngala committing.
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@TYOHawk said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@rockchalkjayhawk said in KU Roster for 25-26:
One roster spot to go. Will we fill it?
Would love a wing in that spot.
Yea looking at the roster we do seem thin with experience at the SF spot?
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@AsadZ said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@BShark He is 26 years old.
Right, it’s pretty crazy that he has eligbility left. Modern times I suppose.
@rockchalkjayhawk I would be rather surprised if that spot was filled. Only so much $ and playing time.
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@BShark said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@AsadZ said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@BShark He is 26 years old.
Right, it’s pretty crazy that he has eligbility left. Modern times I suppose.
@rockchalkjayhawk I would be rather surprised if that spot was filled. Only so much $ and playing time.
Yea on that roster spot? Seems weird for a major program like Kansas to not have a full roster of players. Times are changing i suppose.
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@rockchalkjayhawk said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@BShark said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@AsadZ said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@BShark He is 26 years old.
Right, it’s pretty crazy that he has eligbility left. Modern times I suppose.
@rockchalkjayhawk I would be rather surprised if that spot was filled. Only so much $ and playing time.
Yea on that roster spot? Seems weird for a major program like Kansas to not have a full roster of players. Times are changing i suppose.
It is also more than it used to be now. 15 instead of 13. Admittedly it was always a big bigger with walk-ons. The last spots now are essentially walk-ons. Finding cheap players in this era will be important.
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@BShark said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@rockchalkjayhawk said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@BShark said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@AsadZ said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@BShark He is 26 years old.
Right, it’s pretty crazy that he has eligbility left. Modern times I suppose.
@rockchalkjayhawk I would be rather surprised if that spot was filled. Only so much $ and playing time.
Yea on that roster spot? Seems weird for a major program like Kansas to not have a full roster of players. Times are changing i suppose.
It is also more than it used to be now. 15 instead of 13. Admittedly it was always a big bigger with walk-ons. The last spots now are essentially walk-ons. Finding cheap players in this era will be important.
Well for this year at least, we still have some “walk-ons.”
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@rockchalkjayhawk I’m pretty happy they are at least allowed to continue if they were already aboard. NCAA is pretty daft sometimes.
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@BShark said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@rockchalkjayhawk said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@BShark said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@AsadZ said in KU Roster for 25-26:
@BShark He is 26 years old.
Right, it’s pretty crazy that he has eligbility left. Modern times I suppose.
@rockchalkjayhawk I would be rather surprised if that spot was filled. Only so much $ and playing time.
Yea on that roster spot? Seems weird for a major program like Kansas to not have a full roster of players. Times are changing i suppose.
It is also more than it used to be now. 15 instead of 13. Admittedly it was always a big bigger with walk-ons. The last spots now are essentially walk-ons. Finding cheap players in this era will be important.
It’s sort of more than it used to be. Before it was 13 scholarships with unlimited walk-ons, now it’s 15 players with the scholarships divided up however the school want to divide the scholarships. Current walk-ons are grandfathered in for the remainder of their eligibility and are allowed to transfer if they choose to and still retain that eligibility.
I know Jaden Nickens wanted to play basketball as well and still could since KU has one roster spot open, but he’s not currently listed on KU’s roster so I’m wondering if Self is waiting to see how Nickens feels at the end of football season before adding him to the roster because I believe Self is now done with the 2025-26 roster.
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When laid bare like that, I’m not overly encouraged about next season.
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Next season is going to be as good as DP and Flory let it be. The supporting cast around them doesn’t jump off the page but appears to fit around those two pretty well. We went for the big transfer names in the past few years and those haven’t worked out for us, so it is encouraging to me that we went after fit over talent this year. Yes a bit more shooting around DP/Flory would be nice, but that should at least be improved from the last couple of years.
So far, I haven’t seen anything on DP/Flory coming out to make me believe they aren’t up to the task. Granted I have been a bit checked out of KU news lately so could always be some concerning rumbling I am just missing.
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Big gains for Flory.
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I’m more excited about the team than last year, but it has the build of a team that is 2-3 years away. Unfortunately teams don’t stick around that long - so maybe a sweet 16 berth should make us happy as it seemingly requires catching lightening in a bottle (or more money than KU has) to win now.
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The whole is going to be better than the sum of its parts IMO. Early reports are the young guys look really good. I think it’s going to be hard to keep Rosario out of the starting lineup come league play.
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I’ve heard some say Calderon shouldn’t touch the floor= = == = and yet every time I hear Self talk or read things from Self he is constantly talking about how they have been really impressed with him and how he thinks he can really help the team
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Calderon is going to look good in unstructured scrimmages from just being crazy athletic but he was downright bad in OTE ball.
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If I coached this team I would probably redshirt Corbin Allen and Samis Calderon
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It’s a long season. Once we start play we get an early gauge, then it becomes the real test as the season progresses and we find out if they can continue to improve at a rate equal or better than the pack. This is where the joy came into focus with our last championship team as they stepped up big time towards the end. Other teams fall off often from injuries or players showing too much wear. I haven’t had much of a view of our new team but my early impression is positive on physicality and overall depth, holding promise of not wearing down as long as we avoid injuries.
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@dylans said in KU Roster for 25-26:
When laid bare like that, I’m not overly encouraged about next season.
On paper Arizona’s roster is head and shoulders better than KU. Texas tech is as well.
KU returning stud is Flory at 5.9ppg. Yikes even AJ Storr scored more last year. It’s not encouraging, hopefully this KU team will be a joy to watch as they aren’t winning anything of importance - the Big12 is Arizona, Texas Tech, and probably Houston’s to lose. The national title - …not KU that much I would wager my house on. It’s unusual to be able to tell before the games start that KU has zero chance to win a title of any kind. If I knew the players would be here next year I would be encouraged, but most will be gone and it’ll be another rebuild. This era sucks.
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I don’t see anything in that article that should have you this down on next year. If you are talking about on paper, Barttorvik preseason rankings has Arizona slightly higher than KU and TT significantly lower. I do agree Houston is likely to be better, but they still have to replace some major contributors in Cryer and Roberts. These are also all preseason rankings and don’t mean that much at the end of the day. It is wild to already be punting on the season before even seeing this team play a game together. IDK if you are just down on the NIL era in general or trying to neg the season so you don’t get hurt again, but you can let yourself hope a little man.
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@MR11 This is KU, if you can’t compete for a national title, it is a bad year. Next year looks like a bad year. I would take anyone’s money that wants to wager on KU even making the final four. That roster is mid and most are one year rentals. Pass on next year. Maybe the next year more players will stick around and KU will be decent. This year is a loss already.
…about those bets, cash only.
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What kind of odds are you offering? I’m not big on betting but I wouldn’t be able to pass up if you are giving out 100/1 championship odds if you really think KU has no chance for a title. I’m seeing most KU Vegas odds sitting at 20/1. Florida and Uconn from 2022-2023 season both won it going in to the season at 60/1 odds, 20/1 hardly seems hopeless.
Really, I’m just not seeing your reasons to completely give up on the season. Have you been at summer workouts and the team is a mess or something? Have you scouted the incoming transfers and see something that makes you think they are going to flop? I wouldn’t even push back much if you were just saying you don’t have high expectations for the team, that’s reasonable. But seems like you are saying there is no hope for next year based on vibes and ppg numbers.
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I’m expecting an NCAA berth; it’s not guaranteed but should be the baseline. The conference is brutally tough and that will actually help. But team has to be greater than the sum of the parts. It has to be.
Sweet 16 would be great. A bit of an aspirational goal.
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Bill has taken a similarly talented group to a natty appearance so just my view, but it’s too early to say.
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This is a good conversation but I would like to hear some other perspectives? @Texas-Hawk-10 @kuballin10 @paakdnmb43 @SlimShaddy54 What do you guys make of our squad heading into next season?
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@Jhawk69 I think it’s worth giving the team a shot, we largely have new players.
I would take KU’s roster over Arizona. I believe a lot of Dylans being down on the situation is not believing in Flory in general. I know him and Approx went at it on this subject before. I am somewhere in the middle with him but I think it’s very much within the realm of possibility that he proves to be a better all around player for the team than Hunter was. Defense can be hard to measure. I know last year’s team graded out well on that end but I believe that is largely due to Bill’s genius. That team was not getting a stop when they needed it. I suspect this team will be better on both ends if things play out right. This roster has quite a bit of positional length and should be getting after teams, attacking the ball to generate turnovers and thriving in transition. This team should actually play fast again, which was impossible to do with Hunter. As far as the offense in general, I know the KJ/Juan horse is long dead, but the impact of not playing a complete non-shooter and an unwilling shooter will open things up tremendously. That’s the thing some people (not saying anyone here) don’t understand about this topic in general. Jalen Wilson in the title year shot 26% from three. The important thing is that he was a willing shooter that had to at least be guarded out there.
TL;DR I’m going to believe in this team until they give me a reason not to.
