Former Kansas Jayhawks basketball center Ernest Udeh heads to rival Big 12 program

Shreyas Laddha
·2 min read
11

Former Kansas Jayhawks center and 2022-23 freshman Ernest Udeh Jr. is moving south.

The 6-foot-11, 250-pound native of Orlando, Florida, a freshman men’s basketball player at KU last season, tweeted Wednesday that he’d chosen one of KU’s Big 12 rivals, TCU, as his transfer destination.

“Imma need to grow some horns,” Udeh wrote Wednesday in a social media post.

Udeh entered the transfer portal May 11, days after former Michigan big man Hunter Dickinson picked Kansas as his transfer destination. Udeh wasn’t the only Jayhawk to enter the portal: fellow big Zuby Ejiofor did so, too, the day after Dickinson’s arrival.

“It was a unique situation. We didn’t anticipate losing Ernest or Zuby there at the end, but when we got Hunter, it kind of threw things off a little bit,” Self said on the Field of 68 Podcast. “Those are good problems to have. It will probably create really good situations for those two. But on the flip side, it’s given us an opportunity as well.”

Udeh played 8.3 minutes per game in 30 of KU’s 36 contests during the 2022-23 season. He averaged 2.6 points and 1.6 rebounds per game and was the backup to KJ Adams. Udeh shot 34-for-45 (75.6%) from the field.

He scored a career-high 10 points versus Seton Hall in December and had three blocks and a steal against Kansas State in late January.

Udeh arrived at KU as the No. 32-rated player in the recruiting Class of 2022, according to 247Sports. He averaged 13.1 points and 9.2 rebounds per game during his senior season at Dr. Phillips High School. He was named a McDonald’s All-American following his senior season.

Udeh is the final of eight KU players to pick a new school. The other seven players were: Bobby Pettiford (East Carolina), Cam Martin (Boise State), Zach Clemence (Santa Barbara), Joseph Yesufu (Washington State), MJ Rice (North Carolina State), Kyle Cuffe Jr. (Syracuse) and Ejiofor (St. John’s).

Last season the Horned Frogs (22-13, 9-9) finished sixth in the Big 12 and lost to Gonzaga 84-81 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Kansas split its season series with TCU.