The what-ifs that still surround KU’s frontcourt

photo by: Perspektiva Ilirija/Ales Fevzer

Mihailo Mušikić takes a shot during an ABA League basketball match between Perspektiva Ilirija and Borac Mozzart in Tivoli Hall, Ljubljana, Slovenia on Monday, April 13, 2026.

A new wrinkle emerged last week in an already complicated situation for the Kansas men’s basketball frontcourt.

Multiple reports suggested KU had received a commitment from international center prospect Mihailo Mušikić, a 7-footer from Kraljevo, Serbia, with his addition to the roster pending because of his uncertain NCAA eligibility situation.

Mušikić is a 24-year-old professional player who has appeared for a variety of teams since starting his youth career with Mega Superbet in his home country’s capital city of Belgrade. Under the NCAA’s new five-year eligibility rules, his time to play college basketball would already have elapsed; since he was born on March 25, 2002, his five-year clock started in the fall of 2021. However, prospects who begin playing during the 2026-27 academic year are able to choose either the new or old eligibility model.

That means Mušikić could go about becoming eligible under the previous system — which may depend on the extent to which in his career he has received compensation commensurate with “actual and necessary expenses,” a favorite term of the NCAA’s, and the duration of his time playing professionally.

In any case, Mušikić’s attachment to KU is hardly ironclad at this point. On the day that several outlets reported his commitment, a source told the Journal-World that KU was in fact recruiting him but that there was “nothing done at all.”

It is simply another layer of intrigue, at a late stage of the offseason, for what is already KU’s most muddled position group.

• What if Mušikić isn’t approved?

It’s difficult to gauge how significant of a factor the Serbian could truly be. Most recently, he played for Borac Mozzart in Čačak, Serbia. He primarily took part in the team’s games in the multinational ABA League, in which he averaged 3.4 points and 3.6 rebounds in 13.1 minutes per game. He has had more productive seasons at the senior level in the Serbian domestic league, such as when he tallied 14.2 points and 6.1 rebounds in 15 games for KK Metalac during the 2024-25 campaign. His production has been wide-ranging and if he makes it to Lawrence, he’ll be doing so on a delayed schedule as he adjusts to a new country and new style of play.

If the NCAA finds fault with his prospective eligibility, KU will be back where it appeared to be before JayhawkSlant first reported on June 30 that it had interest in Mušikić in the first place: relying on a veteran who has never been productive at the high-major level to play more like he did at Charleston, and on a raw but promising youngster to extrapolate what he did in 29 NCAA Tournament minutes to an entire season.

• What if Christian Reeves isn’t at full strength?

Above, of course, is a rather uncharitable characterization of KU’s situation with Christian Reeves and Paul Mbiya, Reeves in particular. One could just as easily argue that Reeves recorded 11.1 points and 7.8 rebounds at Charleston in a mere 21.4 minutes per game — while playing through a shoulder injury — so it’s not unreasonable to think he could do even more when healthy and in a larger role.

He has to in fact be healthy first, though. Reeves had surgery on the injured shoulder in the spring, and head coach Bill Self said in June that he won’t be able to practice with full contact until October. It could be asking a lot for him to play significant minutes within a month of his return.

If he isn’t completely up to speed right away (or, worse, if he misses some early games — recall two years ago when Shakeel Moore suffered a purportedly six-to-eight-week injury eight weeks before the season and then only played 27 minutes in nonconference play), KU will either need more of Mušikić than it would otherwise or, if the Serbian doesn’t make it over, be forced to play small ball.

The Jayhawks have already undoubtedly had to practice with some smaller lineups in Reeves’ absence, anyway, so the idea of Keanu Dawes as a center isn’t remotely foreign. And there’s a lot to like about the speed, agility and shooting of a lineup with Taylen Kinney, Leroy Blyden, either Dennis Parker Jr. or Kohl Rosario, Tyran Stokes and Dawes. But it’s also highly matchup-dependent with no player bigger than the 6-foot-9, 225-pound Dawes, and in any case, Self has said he doesn’t want to play small. Time will tell whether he is forced to do so.

• What if Davion Adkins is better than anticipated?

The premise is not to suggest that expectations for Adkins were especially low — he’s a four-star prospect — but the recruitments of Kinney and Stokes drew so much attention in the 2026 class, and in the meantime 247Sports dropped Adkins from No. 33 overall when he signed with KU to No. 74 by midsummer.

Early reports on the lefty, however, have been quite promising. In an offseason edition of the “Hawk Talk” radio show, associate head coach Jeremy Case made Adkins sound like perhaps a more versatile player than anyone believed, praising his ball skills and his ability to shoot “better than we thought he could”; assistant coach Jacque Vaughn also shouted him out for his curiosity and his persistence.

That all bodes well for the Arlington, Texas, native’s chances of carving out at least a few minutes per game as part of the 2026-27 rotation. At 6-foot-9 and 205 pounds, he probably doesn’t have the bulk yet to play in the middle on a consistent basis, although Case suggested he could rotate in at center and his 7-foot-2 wingspan might help a bit in that realm.

But if he can even perhaps play alongside Dawes at times instead of strictly as his backup — something with which better-than-expected ball handling and shooting certainly helps — he can help provide KU another sort of look in the small-ball category.

And if Adkins is viable, that at least does a little to mitigate the need for Reeves to return promptly from injury or for Mušikić to be deemed eligible.

photo by: AP Photo/Gregory Payan

Prolific Prep’s Davion Adkins (25) is seen against Dynamic Prep during a high school basketball game at the Hoophall Classic, Monday, January 19, 2026, in Springfield, Mass.