Former KU guard Joseph Yesufu to leave Washington St. after injury-plagued season

Former Kansas Jayhawks men’s basketball guard Joseph Yesufu, who played in just six games this past season at Washington State, has decided to enter the NCAA transfer portal again.

Yesufu, a 6-foot, 185-pound native of Bolingbrook, Illinois, spent this past season with the Cougars after two seasons at KU and two at Drake. His 2023-24 season ended early because of a hip injury.

Yesufu, 23, played and started in six games for the Cougars. He averaged 6.2 points and 2.0 rebounds per contest with 11 total assists to six turnovers.

He averaged 25.4 minutes per game in the six games he was available for Washington State, which went 9-2 with Yesufu on the court.

Yesufu connected on 36.8% of his shots, including 8 of 23 from 3-point range (34.8%). He scored a season-high 15 points with five assists and two rebounds in 36 minutes versus Mississippi State.

Washington went 25-10, beating Yesufu’s former school, Drake, in the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 64. Iowa State eliminated the Cougars in the Round of 32.

The coach who recruited Yesufu to Washington State, Kyle Smith, is now the head coach at Stanford. Yesufu is the sixth player from WSU’s 2023-24 team to enter the portal. As of Monday night the school had not yet hired a coach.

Former WSU coach Smith had this to say about Yesufu right before the start of the 2023-24 season: “He’s an explosive combo (guard). Right now, he’ll probably be at the point for us. But he can really guard the ball, he can really shoot it, and he can really get it going scoring-wise. But we’re going to need his premier shooting. Looks a little like those UW-kind-of guards back in the day, the Isaiah (Thomas), Nate Robinson type. He’s a smaller, strong, explosive guy who can get buckets.”

At KU in 2022-23, Yesufu averaged 4.1 points in 12.6 minutes a game. He played on KU’s NCAA title team in 2022, averaging 2.1 points in 9.2 minutes per game in 34 appearances.

While at Drake, Yesufu averaged 12.8 points per game as a sophomore and 3.8 points per game during his freshman season. Before entering college, he was an Illinois all-state honorable mention at Bolingbrook High and was named the Herald News boys basketball player of the year, averaging 16.0 points.

Three additional former Jayhawks recently announced plans to enter the portal. The three are: Bobby Pettiford, who left KU for East Carolina; Issac McBride, who left KU for Vanderbilt, then Oral Roberts; and Marcus Adams, who left KU’s program last summer and headed to BYU.

The three have yet to announce their new transfer destinations,