KU Transfer Portal Nightmare: Flory Bidunga To Texas Tech Or BYU?

In this video, I break down the growing drama around Flory Bidunga entering the transfer portal and why the possibility of KU losing its best returning player to Texas Tech or BYU would be a massive problem for Bill Self and the Jayhawks. With most of Kansas’ roster already in flux, this is the kind of portal loss that could completely reshape the Big 12 race.

I go through the latest rumors around Bidunga, why Texas Tech and BYU are such dangerous possibilities for Kansas, how serious the Duke buzz is, and whether Jayhawk fans should actually panic. I also discuss what this says about Bill Self, Kansas roster building in the portal era, and how KU could still recover if Flory Bidunga leaves Lawrence.

If you follow Kansas basketball, Bill Self, Flory Bidunga, the college basketball transfer portal, Big 12 basketball, Texas Tech basketball, BYU basketball, or the future of KU in the NIL era, this is a story you need to watch.

Chapters:
0:00 KU could lose its best returning player
0:52 Bill Self returns but KU roster problems remain
1:42 Why Flory Bidunga is such a huge loss
2:44 The reported price for elite big men in the portal
3:39 The four national contenders for Bidunga
4:31 Why Texas Tech is such a scary possibility
5:24 What a Flory return to Allen Fieldhouse would look like
6:23 Why BYU is suddenly in the mix
7:06 My best guess on where Bidunga lands
7:52 Should Kansas fans panic?
8:41 What this says about Bill Self in the portal era
9:31 The Tyron Stokes angle and KU’s long-term outlook
10:15 Can Kansas still build a great roster?

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#KansasBasketball #KUbasketball #FloryBidunga #BillSelf #Big12 #TransferPortal #CollegeBasketball #TexasTechBasketball #BYUBasketball #NIL

Transcript

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Almost the entire Kansas roster is in the transfer portal. And the Jayhawks' best player, other than Darren Peterson, who we know is going to be in the NBA, right? Jayhawks best player who was set to come back might actually now be playing against them. Yes, staying in the Big 12. Will Texas Tech or BYU be able to land Flori Badunga? And is it time to panic in Lawrence? Let's talk about it all. Uh, it's been a wild offseason already for the Jayhawks. They were on Bill Selfwatch like immediately after the season ended because of his health situation, what he said at the podium after the St. John's loss. And so that was the initial conversation here. It started gravitating toward, all right, well, are we are we chasing Ben McCollum? Are we chasing Tommy Lloyd? Like, what are we doing? Matt Norlander, by the way, from CBS Sports insinuated in a hit that he did the other day within the last 48 hours that Ben McCollum is somebody that perhaps there's some mutual interest there whenever that time comes. Anyway, Kansas got what I would tell you is some good news in the short term, and that Bill Self is returning simply because of the floor that you have with him as a head coach. It is quite high. But that so far has not led to Kansas keeping the roster together. You got you got a lot of Jayhawks in the portal right now. El Marco Jackson, Bryson Tiller, former five-star prospect, who had a nice stretch at least this season. Jamari McDowell, uh Paul Mbia, the other big that had a nice game uh against St. John's last we saw him. And then Flori Badunga. Yes, that's the big one. Big 12 defensive player of the year, first team all Big 12. One of the best bigs out there, arguably the best player in the portal. Depending on where you look, I've seen him at one or two in terms of being the best player in the transfer portal right now. Now, yes, you could look at this and say, well, John, Flory Badunga was in the transfer portal for like a week last year, and then he wound up coming back to Kansas. True, but I this feels different because one, there was already the flirtation last year. Two, there were a ton of rumors throughout the season about his camp shopping him around. And uh now we're here and he's actually in the portal. And there have been rumors. Now, again, I will stress here rumors that he was asking for five million dollars. I I did just see Jeff Goodman from Field of 68 tweet that after pulling, I it was 10 or 20 GMs and head coaches across the country on what the price is of a frontline big, like an elite big in the transfer portal, it did say four to five million dollars. So maybe that is a legit ask, maybe it's not. Some have thrown some cold water on that, but either way, if that's the asking price, as much as you know, I mean Kansas is certainly not under-resourced, but I don't know that they're gonna be paying five million dollars to compete on on keeping Florey around there, right? So it it feels it feels different to me this year. It feels feels pretty real, and that's that's a big blow, man. He's a stud. He's a good player, great rim protector, elite rim protector, and then elite finisher. Like you just lob it up to him, and the guy's gonna dunk absolutely everything. So who's gonna be involved here, right? That's now the question. And how much trouble is Kansas in trying to replace the vast majority of its production from last year? Please do subscribe to the channel, pushing toward 35k subs, getting there. Ton of you watch, but don't subscribe. It does really help if you just give me that one click to subscribe to the channel. Duke has been the long-rumored name here. When I go back to the rumors that were popping up during the season, uh, a lot of people were talking about Florida but don't go to Duke. And they certainly seem to be in the picture right now. No matter who you're looking at, whatever reporting you're looking at on this, Duke is one of the teams that is mentioned. There is there is really a core four that are getting the most mention, but this has been a bizarre saga that involves a couple of Big 12 teams, right? You're trying to cut through the noise and decipher who's reporting is accurate, who's right, what's going on here. Michigan, Duke, Louisville, St. John's. Those four appear to be like firmly in it. Jeff Goodman has reported that. 24-7 Sports has reported that. It's beyond that where it gets uh a little bit murkier because even before, like before we saw the list from Jeff Goodman there, 24-7 Sports had somebody crystal ball him to Texas Tech on Tuesday. So that means putting in an official prediction that he would be going to Texas Tech. Now, let's start doing some math here. Okay, I'm a communications grad, but I can do a little bit of math. I just said the rumor was Florey asking for$5 million. Who has more money than anybody in the Big 12? Arguably the country, Texas Tech. So is that a crystal ball just from a hey, two plus two equals four? Tech's got a ton of money. They've seen him play up close. They'll throw a massive bag at him, or is it like, oh, oh, okay, like tech really is a place to expect him to land because they they did. Like that's legit throwing that money out there. I don't know. I don't know. There was that crystal ball out there. And then, well, and first of all, just let's pause and imagine that, right? Like, you got some underlying tension between tech and Kansas after the you know, the knife gate incident last year in uh in Lubbock. And then those are two rabid fan bases with, I think, the two rowdiest environments in the league in terms of home courts. Imagine a game played between those two, right? Florey coming back to Allen Fieldhouse or something with Texas Tech. Boy, Kansas not a place used to losing players like that and dealing with betrayal like that. That'd be fun. A lot of animosity in the building there. But Jeff Goodman does not list Texas Tech. It was just that that list of four that I brought up earlier, right, for him. And then Travis Barr uh Branham of 24-7 Sports listed those main four: Louisville, Duke, St. John's, Michigan, and then threw BYU into the mix as well. All right. BYU mentioned with Florey Badunga. Uh now we saw last year, as I mentioned earlier, Rob Wright went from Baylor to BYU. That was an intra-conference transfer that the Cougars were willing to stick their neck out for and go grab. So, I mean, the precedent has been set there. And when I say all's fair and love war in the transfer portal, here you go. BYU also certainly would have some funds to splash around. We can debate how much it was they actually paid for AJ DeBonsa. It was certainly a lot of money. It was certainly multiple seven figures for AJ DeBonsa last year. I don't know whether or not he's going to actually end up at tech or BYU. It seems like the four schools have all been mentioned more consistently than just those two, but the one for tech was a crystal ball. So, like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know what's going on there. If you, at the end of the day, if you put a gun to my head, I would say Duke just because that was the rumor that we've been hearing for a very long time. Now, should Kansas panic about this, I mean, no, like it's Bill Self. Once again, I think he got a pretty high floor, but I'll go back to the same thing I said about BYU. When you're flipping over so much of the production on your roster, it becomes, I think, less likely that you reach your true potential as a program or a team. And think back to like the whole theory, at least my whole theory on Bill Self. I know most people boil it down to well, Kansas used to pay players through Adidas or whatever, and Curtis Towns in the bag, man. Now everybody can pay players, and that's I think it's more the portal aspect of it, where it's you cannot hang on to guys like this for four years anymore. Like in the past, Bryson Tiller would have stuck around for four years, and he would have worked through some of the issues that plagued him at the end of the season last year, and Bill Self would have turned him into a monster. And by year four, he would be a monster, and you'd have three or four of those guys. And now that doesn't happen anymore. That's my premise as to why Self has taken a step back a bit. It's probably more complex than just that, but to me, that's a huge part of it. Well, now you're talking about all right, just flip the roster over again, like not being able to rely on any of that that was self's strength. And maybe all of this is just kind of a paradox, and it's like, well, John, nobody's really gonna be able to do that in this era. So Self just has to learn how to do it differently, and that will tell the tale of whether or not he's ultimately going to have success. Fair enough. That may well be true. I would still say I think he's got a pretty high floor. Uh, there's also this. I mean, this will lessen some of the sting of this. Uh Kansas is gonna have plenty of talent because they're the perceived leader right now for Tyrant Stokes, who's the number one high school player in the country. So, you know, I I guess Kentucky may have something to say about that, but it when Bill Self announced he was coming back, you got a was it an eyeball emoji tweet from Stokes, and like much of the speculation has been that if Self came back, Kansas would be landing him. Now, that's uh that's a young buck. Darren Peterson didn't work out this past year in getting Kansas back to where they wanted to go. I mean, certainly he was a good, effective player and had great moments and got a ton of attention, but there was also the health stuff, and then even when he was healthy at the end of the year, then he wasn't playing as well, and it was not what Kansas envisioned that it would be. And generally, when Kansas has had those types of players, Andrew Wiggins, Joel Embiid, Josh Selby, it has not worked out the way they've wanted it to in the NCAA tournament, at least. Um, but they're gonna have talent. They'll give Bill Self a ton of money to go build a great roster this year because he's coming back. Nobody wants him to go out the way that he would have gone out had he retired this past offseason. So we'll see. We'll see. But I certainly would not panic. Now, Bill Self stayed at Kansas, he did not retire. Tommy Lloyd, also staying at Arizona, he turned down North Carolina. Click here to find out why.