Kansas Basketball: Udoka Azubuike’s return a big boost for Jayhawks
By Neil Adler
The Kansas basketball team has received a dose of good news, as big man Udoka Azubuike says he will come back for his senior campaign.
The Kansas basketball squad, which disappointingly bowed out in the 2019 NCAA Tournament’s round of 32 to eventual Final Four participant Auburn, got a significant jolt to its frontcourt on Monday afternoon, when head coach Bill Self revealed that center Udoka Azubuike will return for his senior year. The 7-foot-0 Azubuike averaged 13.4 points and 6.8 rebounds in just nine games during the 2018-19 term, according to Self’s announcement, before suffering a season-ending wrist injury.
Prior to the beginning of 2018-19, Azubuike, a native of Delta, Nigeria, was named a candidate for the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Center of the Year honor, and many of the sport’s pundits projected the Jayhawks as one of the top units in the country and a serious Final Four contender. Sadly, once Azubuike couldn’t compete any longer, Kansas didn’t prove the same, ultimately succumbing to an early March Madness exit after reaching the national semi-finals in the 2018 Big Dance.
“We’re all very excited about Udoka making the decision not to enter the (NBA) draft,” Self said in the Jayhawks’ press release. “Unfortunately for him, injury is the reason as he still cannot participate (at) what would be the NBA combine or workouts for the NBA teams. We really anticipated that this would be the year he would enter the draft but that was also based on him having an injury-free year.”
With Kansas missing out on 2019 five-star forward Matthew Hurt, who selected Duke, and redshirt junior forward Dedric Lawson, on the Associated Press All-America third crew this past season, declaring for the NBA Draft, the Jayhawks will definitely hope for Azubuike to bolster their frontcourt, although his struggles with injuries are a concern. Regardless, this is a major development for Kansas, and I wish nothing but the best for Azubuike in his final campaign with the Jayhawks.
“Udoka knows that he still has some unfinished work left in college and at the University of Kansas and he has let us know that he is very excited about the potential for next year’s team and the role in which he would have,” Self added. “I am sad he got hurt but happy for our program because if things fall the way that we think they could potentially fall, this is a big piece to anchor what could be a real fun year next season.”
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Azubuike, if he remains healthy, is a force in the paint. As a sophomore, when the Jayhawks journeyed to the Final Four, he tallied 13.0 points and 7.0 boards per contest, while connecting from the field at 77.0 percent, the second-highest mark for an individual stanza in NCAA history, says the Kansas announcement.