photo by: Justin Mohling/The Basketball Tournament

JHX Hoops' Zeke Mayo exclaims during a game against Heartfire on Wednesday, July 23, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo.

Former Kansas guard Zeke Mayo has signed to play professional basketball for Ironi Kiryat Ata in the Israeli Basketball Premier League, the team announced on Instagram on Thursday.

Mayo’s agency ADS Sports Management also shared the news on social media and wished its client a “long, successful pro career ahead.”

“We’ve been following Zeke since the beginning of the summer, and he was our first option at the guard positions,” Ironi Kiryat Ata head coach Eldad Bentov said in a press release, as translated from Hebrew. “Zeke will help us a lot and I’m sure he’ll quickly integrate into Israeli basketball despite his young age.”

Mayo is fresh off an appearance in The Basketball Tournament in three games with KU alumni team JHX Hoops, where he averaged 12.3 points and 5.0 rebounds as one of the team’s primary scoring options.

After going unselected in the 2025 NBA Draft, Mayo caught on with the Washington Wizards for the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, but he did not play in either of the team’s first two games and then did not score across 17 minutes in the following two.

“I had fun,” Mayo said on July 17, after he made the trip from Las Vegas to Kansas City, Missouri, to join JHX Hoops. “It was a great opportunity to get out there. Kind of had some ups and downs with it being my first experience, obviously, but I had a lot of fun. Great experience with a new group of people, and just to have that opportunity to get out there in front of NBA executives, it was fun.”

A native of Lawrence and a former Chesty Lion who was a two-time Journal-World All-Area player of the year, Mayo spent three distinguished seasons at South Dakota State before joining KU for his final year of eligibility, the 2024-25 campaign.

The 6-foot-4, 185-pound guard averaged 14.6 points per game while shooting 42.2% from beyond the arc, and shone in particular during stretches of three consecutive 20-plus-point games in late December and mid-March. He was named to the Big 12’s all-league third-team and all-newcomer team.

Mayo had said as soon as he departed the Summer League for JHX that he was considering overseas options to further his pro career; now, he’ll start it in Kiryat Ata in Israel’s Haifa District.