Marcus Adams Jr. explains his decision to leave Kansas basketball
The Kansas City Star unveiled an exclusive interview with Kansas basketball decommit Marcus Adams Jr. Some of the things he said might puzzle Jayhawks fans.
Marcus Adams Jr. surprised a large portion of the Kansas Jayhawks fanbase by becoming the second KU high school commit of the year to leave the program before playing a game in Lawrence.
The 4-star forward from Harbor City, California pledged to Bill Self’s Jayhawks in March. Soon after, he reclassed to 2023 so he could join the team this fall. However, after practicing with the rest of the squad for several weeks this summer, Adams decided it wasn’t the right fit for him.
In an interview with Shreyas Laddha, Adams explained what prompted him to make the abrupt decision to depart from KU.
“I felt like KU wasn’t the right place for me. I see everybody in the comments and some reporters saying it was about playing time… it’s not,” Adams said. “I felt like I would have been good there if I stayed, but I had a gut and heart feeling. I felt like it wasn’t a place for me.”
Although those comments were rather ordinary, what he stated after is a bit surprising.
“It’s not (about) playing time. I could have got a good amount of play-time and done well my first year at KU. It was just more than that. It was the area, the city, the team, the bond and the chemistry. It wasn’t really there. It wasn’t really aligned for me.”
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Speaking of the area, Adams called Lawrence, Kansas, the “country.” Although it isn’t the most urban area in the United States, Lawrence has one of the most thriving downtown sections in the Midwest. Even if moving to Kansas from California can be a difficult transition, the comment certainly wasn’t needed.
He continued:
“The fans and all that showed me a lot of support during my time there, but I couldn’t see myself at Kansas for years,” Adams said. “There are no hard feelings. I just couldn’t see myself there.”
According to Adams, the team’s chemistry didn’t seem right in practice.
“I felt like it was a bit odd with the team. I (didn’t) feel like it was the right fit, so I left when I had some time.”
We can chalk up some of his responses to an 18-year-old struggling to adjust to his new setting. At the end of the day, he is a young kid trying to figure out what is best for his future. It never worked out between him and the Jayhawks, so we can now move on from him at this point.
The rest of the interview can be found here.
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