48 Days Until Kansas Basketball: ESPN Names Kurtis Townsend KU's Best Recruiter

ESPN college basketball recruiting writer Jeff Borzello named the top recruiter on staff for each of the team's in ESPN's too early preseason top 25 (although we aren't too early anymore), and Kurtis Townsend is the guy for Kansas (insider subscription required).

Townsend was the main guy behind Ben McLemore, Andrew Wiggins, and Josh Jackson, but also played a huge part in getting Jeff Withey, Sherron Collins, Darrell Arthur, and Brandon Rush.

There's also a now fairly famous story from back in 2012. Townsend was in a gym in Las Vegas looking at Jordan McLaughlin, who averaged 13 ppg in two seasons for USC, looking for a point guard. Instead, his eye wandered to another player, and Townsend told Bill Self that the kid was better than anyone Kansas was recruiting, even though he was under 6 feet and committed to Towson. No one should have doubted it, but in discovering Frank Mason, Townsend proved he was far more than a guy who could just convince great prospects everyone knew about to go to Kansas; he could also find little known prospects who could eventually turn into one of the better guards in recent Kansas history.