On KU football recruiting targets, Tony Hull and KU basketball lulls

photo by: AP Photo/Keith Srakocic

FILE — Former Pittsburgh quarterback Thomas MacVittie (7) warms up before the annual Pittsburgh Spring NCAA football scrimmage, Saturday, April 15, 2017, in Pittsburgh. MacVittie, who played the 2018 season at Mesa Community College (Ariz.) announced on Dec. 11, 2018, his plans to sign with the University of Kansas. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

The past several days have turned out to be quite busy for new KU football coach Les Miles on a couple of fronts.

Miles is adding to his staff on what seems like a daily basis, with defensive coordinator D.J. Eliot, offensive coordinator Chip Lindsey, receivers coach Emmett Jones, offensive line coach Luke Meadows and defensive backs coach Chevis Jackson in place.

What’s more, the Jayhawks are starting to see early results on the recruiting front since Miles took over.

It didn’t happen overnight. The groundwork was set from the day Miles took over. But now we see visible evidence of how it has paid off in terms of KU’s 2019 recruiting class.

With that, let’s dive into today’s questions.

So, as Ted points out here, one way that Miles and his staffers have attacked the recruiting trails early is by identifying preferred walk-on (PWO) players around the Sunflower State and Kansas City metro area.

That’s a sign that they’re doing a good job with their overall strategy and not solely focusing on finding scholarship players. You need walk-ons to help the program at practices and if you identify the right ones, you might even get a quality game day player out of going that route. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re investing more time than usual on finding quality walk-ons now, given the 2019 signing class is expected to be small, at about 15 players or so.

But it’s not as if Miles or any of the people working for him are ignoring the need for impactful recruits. This week has proven to be a big one, with KU landing commitments from St. Thomas Aquinas defensive back Jayden Russell, 6-foot-5, 250-pound Andale athlete Mason Fairchild and Thomas MacVittie, who is a junior college quarterback whose college career began at Pittsburgh.

KU is also looking at a number of other prospects as next week’s early signing period approaches, including:

• Donte Starks, a four-star linebacker according to Rivals, from New Orleans who is verbally committed to LSU

• Valerian Agbaw, a three-star athlete from Powder Springs, Ga.

• Dontario Drummond, a three-star receiver at East Mississippi Community College

• Malcolm Lee, a three-star defensive end at Iowa Western C.C.

• Jerrod Means, a three-star receiver from Lovejoy, Ga.

• Ezra Naylor, a 6-4 receiver at Iowa Central C.C.

• Eugene Minter, a 6-4 receiver at Dodge City C.C. currently committed to Arkansas State

• Da’Jon Terry, a 6-3 defensive tackle from Meridian, Miss.


This is a great way to describe the KU basketball season up to this point.

Maybe it’s not as noticeable because he has such a laid back, good-natured personality, but I think Dedric Lawson might be the dog you’re looking for.

He’s easily this team’s best overall player and to me what has stood out about Lawson is his ability to come through late in close games — even if he hasn’t played up to his standards earlier in that same game.

Lawson delivered in overtime when Kansas beat Tennessee in New York. He completely took over in crunch time against New Mexico State, and KU would have lost if he hadn’t.

Those are just a couple of moments but I think Lawson is still getting comfortable with his role in his first season of playing at Kansas and being The Guy. I bet we’ll see plenty more dog in him in the months ahead.

Chris: Is there a 2nd legit 3 point shooter on the #KUbball roster?

I mean … Not really. Right?

Players and coaches will tell you Charlie Moore and Quentin Grimes can fill that role. But neither has proven that with any consistency yet.

Moore has been pretty dismal from 3-point range so far — 3-for-22. Maybe this is just a slump and he ends up being a reliable threat from outside.

But to me Grimes is the guy who should become KU’s second 3-point threat, behind Lagerald Vick (29-for-52). Even though we don’t think about the freshman guard as that type of marksman from behind the arc right now, he’s still not been that bad on 3-pointers (11-for-29).

Now, as you may recall, Grimes did go 6-for-10 in KU’s season-opening win over Michigan State, so he is just 5-for-19 in the seven games since. That can change and I think it will. Grimes is too talented for the rest of the season to play out without him taking off. He looks so smooth shooting from deep that an uptick in production seems inevitable to me.

If you haven’t been following KU athletic director Jeff Long on Twitter, you may not know that Horejsi Family Athletics Center, home of KU volleyball, recently was demolished.

And that’s because the Horejsi family paid $10 million to build a bigger, better venue for coach Ray Bechard’s program.

The new arena should seat roughly 1,000 more fans than did the recently leveled one, which had a 1,300-seat capacity.

Construction of Horejsi Family Volleyball Arena is expected to be completed before the Jayhawks begin their 2019 season.

I’m not sure exactly why there hasn’t been an announcement yet regarding Tony Hull, the running backs coach and associate head coach for former KU football coach David Beaty.

When Miles took over he stated his plans to interview all of Beaty’s staff members and gauge whether he would like to retain certain coaches and personnel.

Those meetings have come and gone. And Hull, unlike other members of Beaty’s staff, has been actively recruiting since Miles took over. Hull made an in-home visit with Russell before the three-star defensive back committed to KU.

I’d be shocked if Hull isn’t a member of Miles’ first staff. Perhaps at this stage they’re still shaking out specific roles for everyone. Will Hull still be the running backs coach? Maybe. Perhaps he’ll be the recruiting coordinator. Or both.

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