College Basketball Recruiting: Cliff Alexander Announces for the Kansas Jayhawks

Cliff Alexander, the no. 4 player in the 2014 recruiting class, has declared his intentions to play for Bill Self and the University of Kansas.  Alexander is a 6'8" 240 pound power forward that will step into a system at Kansas that has been very big man friendly and put more than it's share of bigs into the NBA.

The recruitment of Alexander was headed up by new Kansas assistant Jerrance Howard, and it's that relationship that was often pointed to when speculating in favor of the Jayhawks.  That isn't to say this hasn't been a bit of a wild recruitment late.  It was said early this Fall that Alexander was a virtual lock for Kansas, but in recent weeks the speculation seemed to shift toward Illinois.  A last minute trip to Champaign, a cancelled in home visit by Bill Self and an unofficial trip to Lawrence all sent a mixed set of signals, but as of last night many were saying that Depaul or more likely Illinois would be the final landing spot.

However Kansas is the hot brand right now and Bill Self and his staff are knocking down the doors with some major recruiting wins.  Alexander joins Kelly Oubre who has already signed his letter of intent and the two are certainly more than enough to be satisfied with in this class.  It's likely that Kansas will continue working into the Spring now with both Myles Turner and Rashad Vaughn high on the list.  Bill Self will have a better sense after the season as to whether he'll have more spots to fill based on any other early entries outside of the assumed NBA entry of Andrew Wiggins.