Seth Greenberg: Kansas 'didn't make good decisions' in the transfer portal

Kansas has, in consecutive years now, finished with its most losses in a season under Bill Self. That, to Seth Greenberg, has a lot to do with what the Jayhawks have done in the era of the transfer portal.

Greenberg appeared on ‘Get Up’ this morning and discussed where Kansas is after a 79-72 loss to Arkansas in the NCAA Tournament. He can see the issues on the roster from the past two seasons with the decisions of who the Jayhawks have added in the portal and how those transfers went on to actually play for them.

“They never had a chemistry. They never had trust. They lost in their evaluation in the, in the portal,” Greenberg said. “Bill Self said after the game. He said we’ve got to do a better job evaluating in the portal. See, this recruiting in the portal is like speed dating – not that I’ve ever done speed dating – but you better make decisions really quick and they struck out in terms of in the portal. What do you mean by striking out? They didn’t make good decisions. They got nothing out of their investment in Rylan Griffen. They didn’t get anything out of their investment in AJ Storr. And, quite honestly, moving a year ahead, they didn’t get anything out of their investment in Hunter Dickinson.”

“They’ve got to do a better job of evaluating in the portal. Roster construction, no different than in the NBA right now? It’s most important thing is evaluation,” Greenberg added. “You know, they made some bad decisions and that’s just the way it is.”

Over the past two offseasons, Kansas has brought in 10 transfers in total, specifically last offseason with six additions that made up the No. 2 class in On3’s 2024 Team Transfer Portal Rankings. Among those ten were highly-rated commitments who have been key names on the roster in Hunter Dickinson (Michigan), Arterio Morris (Texas), Nick Timberlake (Towson), AJ Storr (Wisconsin), Zeke Mayo (South Dakota State), and Rylan Griffin (Alabama).

However, that didn’t all translate onto the court in Lawrence. Dickinson (17.7 points (53.7% FG), 10.5 rebounds) had great counting stats in earning several accolades with Mayo (14.6 points (44.7% FG, 42.2% 3PT) doing so as well. Timberlake (5.2 ppg.), Storr (6.1 ppg.), and Griffen (6.3 ppg.) then all fell off, considering where they were with their previous programs.

Because of those, at least in part, Kansas has taken a step back the last two years. The Jayhawks are just 44-23 (.657), including 21-17 (.553) in the Big 12, in that time with no conference titles and some of their worst seeding under Self as neither team made it out of the opening weekend of March Madness. This year was their worst in his 22 seasons as head coach as KU finished at 21-13 (11-9) after entering as Preseason No. 1.

Mistakes in the portal are costly enough out on the floor in how they can affect your team. It’s then actually costly in the pocket as donors are a lot less likely to give their money, if their program isn’t spending it correctly in NIL.

“When you’re asking people to pony up, there is donor fatigue in college athletics. Because, where is that money coming from? It’s coming from the donors. Those donors that are paying these guys $800,000, $900,000, $1,000,000, alright? They’re not used to making bad investments. So there’s a lot of pressure on the coaches, Bill Self included, to use that money wisely,” Greenberg said. “But you have to make a decision so quickly because the agents are manipulating the market, alright. They’re saying, well, you know what, Arkansas is going to give them this. We can get this thing done if you give them another $100,000?”

It’s going to be another longer offseason in The ‘Phog as the Jayhawks try to get back into contention under Self. That’ll start with what Kansas does with the roster, with many changes to come regardless due to notable graduations and the portal, going into next season.

Self vows to re-evaluate how to build Kansas’ roster

The Kansas Jayhawks suffered a brutal end to their season as, after being Preseason No. 1, they lost in the Round of 64 of the NCAA Tournament. With that, Bill Self has vowed to make some changes, specifically with their roster.

“Yeah, that’s a fair question. I think it’s a fair question that, in some ways, is an unrealistic question, though. If I’m not mistaken, no matter what you do in life, there’s going to be some ups and downs and we just haven’t had very many downs, to be honest with you,” Self explained. “The last two years, we were such a beat up team at the end, we probably didn’t have much of a chance with our injuries to McCullar and ‘Hunt wasn’t healthy. This yea, we don’t have that excuse. This year, our roster was good enough to be competitive but it probably wasn’t the roster it needed to be to be talked about in a way that the best teams in America are talked about.”

“So, we’ve got to re-evaluate on how we do things and you can’t afford misses. But I will say this – in today’s time, there’s going to be schools that do a great job but still there’s an element of luck involved, I think, more now than there was even before. You can go after the kids that you get a great bargain on, you get a good deal on it and all that stuff but it doesn’t matter unless they fit in and can help you win,” Self said. “We’ve got to do a better job of evaluating the portal but I’m happy with the roster we had. It just didn’t turn out to be the team that we had hoped it was.”