The offseason hits - well, they just keep on coming for the Kansas basketball team and veteran head coach Bill Self. Self has been a bit under fire of late, as he has swung and missed on some big-name targets the Jayhawks have been eyeing.
Everyone knows about 5-star power forward Darrion Williams signing with North Carolina State, while 5-star shooting guard Dame Sarr, an Italian prospect, took a visit to Kansas, but then ultimately ended up committing to the Duke Blue Devils.
As it turns out, Self also had his eyes on St. John's transfer RJ Luis Jr., who has been going through the NBA Draft process. Self was still recruiting him in hopes that he would pull his name out of the draft by Wednesday's deadline. That didn't happen, with the 5-star transfer deciding it's indeed time to go pro:
RJ Luis was reportedly considering Kansas before deciding to stay in the draft
It's tough to be mad at Self in the case of Luis, as it was assumed that he wanted to see his NBA dreams come true this June. However, it's yet another star talent that can be added to the list of guys Self and his staff haven't been able to reel in.
Both the Williams and Sarr news continues to sting, especially with both of them taking official visits to Lawrence. Usually when that happens, the hope is that Self and his coaches would roll out the red carpet for top targets and get things over the line once they're on campus.
Kansas was reportedly finalizing things with Sarr too, but then Duke came calling and everything changed. Last season ended with a first-round loss in the NCAA Tournament, which is never acceptable for this program. Self has a lot of people upset with him and his recruiting failures over the past three weeks or so has a lot of angry fans calling him out left and right.