photo by: AP Photo/Alonzo Adams

Kansas forward Bryson Tiller (15) shoots against Oklahoma State during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026, in Stillwater, Okla.

Kansas forward Bryson Tiller will enter the transfer portal, his agency Seros Partners confirmed to the Journal-World on Monday morning.

Tiller is set to leave the Jayhawks after a season and a half. The 6-foot-11 forward from Atlanta out of Overtime Elite enrolled early at KU in the winter of 2025 when he was rehabbing a long-term ankle injury, then broke out at the start of the 2025-26 season to become a starter in the Jayhawks’ frontcourt as a redshirt freshman.

KU will now need an entirely new frontcourt for 2026-27, as news of Tiller’s departure comes shortly after the disclosure of Flory Bidunga’s plans to test both the NBA Draft and the portal, and was quickly followed by reports that freshman center Paul Mbiya will leave the Jayhawks. The portal officially opens on Tuesday.

The potential positive impact of Tiller’s early arrival on campus during the 2024-25 season was blunted somewhat by the fact that he had to have surgery to deal with his injury from high school. But after strong showings in KU’s first few nonconference games of his first season of action, Tiller quickly entered the starting lineup. He finished the year having started 31 of KU’s 35 games, averaging 7.9 points and 6.1 rebounds with 44.9% shooting from the field.

The prevalent storyline of Tiller’s season was his gradual growth into playing more of an “inside-out” style, as head coach Bill Self put it. His 4-for-4 showing from beyond the arc against North Carolina helped put him on the map, but Self and the coaching staff spent much of the year exhorting him to play to size and demonstrate more physicality in the paint. The freshman produced a number of exceptional performances during the season: 17 points and nine rebounds against Notre Dame in the Players Era, a season-best 21 points against BYU and 18 points as one of the only successful Jayhawks at the offensive end early on in KU’s upset win over then-No. 1 Arizona.

But his production plateaued somewhat in the last few weeks of the season. Outside of a 13-point, eight-rebound showing against Kansas State, Tiller did not reach double-figure scoring after Feb. 23. The physicality storyline came to a head in the Big 12 tournament when Tiller was benched for the second half of KU’s semifinal loss to Houston and so matched his season low with 14 minutes played. After the game, Tiller said he hadn’t talked to Self during halftime and Self said his message was “rebound and play competitive.”

He was also held scoreless on 0-for-2 shooting with five rebounds in KU’s season-ending loss to St. John’s. Even with the inconsistency he displayed, the loss of Tiller deprives KU of a possible future pro who was ahead of schedule for much of his freshman season.