Bill Self believes KJ Adams is among most improved players for second straight season

In the end, it was a relatively comfortable 19-point win for the Kansas Jayhawks over the Texas Longhorns. A big part of that win ended up being thanks to the play of KJ Adams.

Texas head coach Rodney Terry praised KJ Adams as one of the most improved players in the Big 12. Later, when Kansas head coach Bill Self was asked about those comments from Terry, he agreed, saying that he’s one of the most improved players in the conference for a second straight season.

“Rodney’s right. He was the most improved player in our league last year and he could win it again this year,” Bill Self said. “I mean that’s that’s how good I think he’s done. But he won’t. But that’s how I think he could just because that’s not how the voting works.”

Last season, KJ Adams was named the Big 12’s Most Improved Player. It’s a hard one to win twice in a row, even with Bill Self adamant that he’s deserving.

There are a lot of reasons why Self thinks that Adams is a special player who has shown improvement over the years. Among those is that he’s been transitioning from one position to another as each season goes by.

“He’s made that transition from a four-man to a five-man and now back to a guard. He does everything but shoot the ball from the perimeter, but he still finds a way to utilize that body and athletic ability in positive ways. And you know, he’s he just he just a really good player.”

KJ Adams joined the Jayhawks in the Class of 2021 as a four-star recruit, according to the On3 Industry Rankings. He went to high school at Westlake, which is in Austin, Texas.

As a freshman, Adams only had one start and averaged less than five minutes per game. By his sophomore season, he was averaging 27.4 minutes per game while starting all 36 games for Kansas. He averaged 10.6 points, 1.9 assists, and 4.3 rebounds per game.

Now a junior, Adams’ improvement is pretty clear from a statistical comparison. He’s started 26 of 27 games to this point in the season while averaging 33.5 minutes per game. For the season, he’s averaging 12.4 points, 3.3 assists, and 4.6 rebounds per game.

Being from Austin, playing Texas is a game of particular importance to Adams. That’s part of what Self attributed his 16-point performance against the Longhorns to, a little extra motivation for playing his hometown team.