photo by: AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki

Toledo guard Leroy Blyden Jr. (2) in the second half of a basketball game against Massachusetts in the semifinals of the Mid-American Conference tournament, Friday, March 13, 2026, in Cleveland.

TOPEKA — By virtue of his No. 1 ranking in the 2026 recruiting class — not to mention the protracted and suspenseful recruitment that accompanied it, or the immense talent that justified it in the first place — forward Tyran Stokes is sure to be the focal point of most discussions surrounding the 2026-27 Kansas men’s basketball team.

But head coach Bill Self didn’t hesitate on Monday at the Otto Schnellbacher Classic, when asked for a player he was excited about, to name sophomore guard Leroy Blyden Jr.

“I watched Leroy shoot today,” Self said. “It’s pretty impressive. So yeah, I think there’s going to be more, but I think he’s going to be a very good hand.”

He certainly didn’t take long to make an impression, having just arrived a few days earlier. The Toledo transfer burst onto the college basketball scene in similar fashion during the 2025-26 season, averaging 16.4 points per game while shooting 40.7% from deep for the Rockets and earning MAC freshman of the year honors.

Blyden, a listed 6-foot-1, will pair with incoming 6-foot-2 freshman point guard Taylen Kinney in what should be a potent backcourt for next year’s Jayhawks.

“He’s not big, he’s little, so we’ll play two little guards a lot,” Self said. “… But he’s fast, he’s got it on a string and he can shoot the ball. And he’s a point guard skill guy that can score, and so to me, he’s a combo, just like TK’s a combo as well. And I’ve usually done my best when I have combo guards.”

As much appeal as Blyden’s on-court attributes may have presented, there was plenty more to like beyond them, including the fact that he has three years of eligibility remaining (and maybe more if the NCAA’s five-year proposal goes through). Self has spoken in the past about how basketball programs increasingly find themselves trying to win on a year-by-year basis rather than plan for the future, but he said Blyden’s youth “absolutely” made him a more attractive prospect.

“But even with them being a freshman, you understand he’s still a free agent after next year,” Self said. “I wish he was a restricted free agent where we can match what other people do, but the bottom line is he’s a free agent. Everybody is, whether they play good, whether they don’t play so well.

“It’s going to be hope like heck you can get a guy as a freshman and you have a much better chance to keep a kid, in my opinion, for multiple years if you get him here from the outset.”

NOT DONE YET

Under the year-old roster rules that did away with scholarship limits, KU still has two remaining spots available on its 15-man roster. The Jayhawks already have returners Paul Mbiya and Kohl Rosario; transfers Blyden, Keanu Dawes (Utah), Dennis Parker Jr. (Radford) and Christian Reeves (Charleston); and freshmen Davion Adkins, Luke Barnett, Kinney, Grant Mordini, Trent Perry, Atticus Richmond and Stokes.

“Do I think we’re done with significant roster changes? Probably,” Self said. “But we still have a couple guys we can bring in. Can we get a steal? Absolutely. We’ll try to do that but the reality of it is, the big plays have been done for the most part, I think.”

PETERSON’S PROCESS

Self said in a recent interview on the “Big 12 Today” radio show that he has spoken to representatives of the NBA teams at the top of the NBA Draft about guard Darryn Peterson.

After one season with the Jayhawks, the Canton, Ohio, native is likely to go in the top two picks to either the Washington Wizards or Utah Jazz.

The cramping that sidelined Peterson at times and inhibited him almost throughout his lone collegiate season has remained a popular topic of discussion as the draft approaches. Prior to his participation in the NBA Draft Combine, Peterson said in an interview with ESPN that he had solved the issue by ceasing taking creatine. He said that after the end of the college basketball season, doctors determined that ingesting large doses of creatine when he already had a high “baseline level” must have caused the cramping.

On Monday, Self said of Peterson’s draft process and the purported solution for his health issue, “I don’t really follow it that closely.”

“I know our doctors and everybody worked on it tirelessly for a long time,” he added. “But I hope what I’ve read is true. And if it’s true that he can put that behind him, then we’ll see the best version of him.”

The draft begins on June 23 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

YOUNG UPSTARTS

Self opined on Monday that in the current age of college basketball, it is often possible to get better financial deals on incoming freshmen, if they can contend for rotation spots, than for transfer-portal players.

And he seems to think that KU’s incoming freshmen — even beyond the headliners Kinney and Stokes — can do just that.

“I was hopeful that we had to spend the lion’s share of our money on starters, which we did, then the guys that you get need to be guys that are good enough to be in your rotation, but probably not ready to carry the water, so to speak, and I think we did that with our freshmen,” Self said. “I think you guys will all be pleasantly surprised at how they fit in, because they’re going to need to.”

He named Adkins, Barnett and Perry, all fall signees, as potential candidates for the rotation when the season comes.