In the 2023-24 season, the Kansas basketball team struggled to receive offensive production from its guards. Facilitating point guard Dajuan Harris was unable to take on a bigger offensive role, and first-year Jayhawks Nick Timberlake and Elmarko Jackson were underwhelming for the majority of the campaign.
Kansas could have utilized a number of players in the transfer portal to fill the two-guard spot, one of them being Houston Cougars guard LJ Cryer. He averaged 15.5 points, 3.0 threes made, 2.4 rebounds, and 1.9 assists on 41.1%/38.8%/87.1% shooting splits this year, garnering All-Big 12 Second Team honors.
After he transferred from Baylor last offseason, Cryer said he wanted to switch to a school in the Big 12. While he did wind up in the same conference, this report by Chris Baldwin of PaperCity Magazine will have KU fans wishing he was a Jayhawk.
University of Houston guard LJ Cryer tells @PaperCityMag that Kansas was his dream blue blood school growing up, but the Jayhawks never showed any interest in recruiting him. Cryer loved Kansas' Frank Mason III, a small guard who swept the Player of the Year Awards in 2017. Cryer…
— Chris Baldwin (@ChrisYBaldwin) March 28, 2024
Houston star LJ Cryer wanted to play for the Kansas Jayhawks at one point
The 6-foot sharpshooter says his dream college out of high school was Kansas. He had aspirations to be like Frank Mason III, an undersized guard who was one of the best players to compete at KU in the past few decades. However, Bill Self and his coaching staff never reached out to him, and Cryer also seemed to suggest that he was never contacted when he entered the portal last year either.
Cryer would have done wonders for the 2023-24 Jayhawks, who shot just 33.2% from beyond the arc. He made 112 3-pointers at an efficient clip, good for the eighth-most in the nation. After reading the post on Twitter, some Kansas fans were shocked to hear that the program never even pursued him.
"Bill Self forgot how fun it is to have guards who can shoot and score apparently. Would love to have Cryer, and ling for the days of guards like Mason, Devonte Graham, etc," someone posted.
"Well, we didn't need him. We were too smart for that. We had Arterio Morris," one user sarcastically wrote. Morris was kicked off the team before the season began after being arrested and charged with rape.
"Hate to say it, I think Self might need to shake up his staff a bit, but he is very loyal, so I doubt that happens," another person said.
When Cryer was a freshman, Kansas recruited guards like Latrell Jossell and Tyon Grant-Foster over him, and neither of those two worked out at KU. But as they say, hindsight is always 20/20. Cryer is expected to return to Houston to spend his final season of eligibility, so Kansas fans likely haven't seen the last of him.
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