Big 12 Basketball

The Kansas Jayhawks have made a splash for the Class of 2024.

Flory Bidunga, a five-star recruit and No. 1 center in the Class of 2024 announced that he had committed to play for the Jayhawks.

Bidunga has 16 offers, including schools like Auburn, Michigan and Arizona State, and had made visits to Auburn, Duke and Kansas. He is the Jayhawks first commit of the 2024 cycle.

Bidunga stands at 6'8" and weighs 215 pounds and hails from Kokomo, Indiana. He was named the 2022-23 Indiana Gatorade Player of the Year after averaging 19.8 points, 13.5 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game.

He arrived in Kokomo before his sophomore year after growing up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In just two seasons, he has already eclipsed the 1,000 point mark and holds the state records for single game dunks (11) and consecutive made field goals (32).

His commitment immediately puts the Jayhawks into the Top 20 for recruiting classes in 2024 and they are the only team in the Top 20 with just a single commit on the list. The Jayhawks did not have a center commit out of high school in the Class of 2023 but did snag Michigan's Hunter Dickinson in the transfer portal.

Bidunga was originally expected to be heading to Duke, but the reclassification of Cooper Flagg complicates this. Auburn appeared to be his next target but instead he is heading to Lawrence where he will look to help guide Bill Self's Jayhawks to another NCAA Championship.

After threatening to sue West Virginia and demanding he be reinstated as head coach of the men's basketball team, Bob Huggins released a statement on Monday to address the situation.

Huggins stated that he never resigned from his position as head coach following his arrest for DUI in June, and he reiterated his desire to remain in the role.

WV MetroNews' Hoppy Kercheval reported that the University called Huggins' claim "completely factually inaccurate," as his resignation letter was sent in by his wife and he also met with players to inform them of his departure last month.

Huggins said in his statement that he "did not draft or review" West Virginia's announcement of his resignation, and "The false statement was sent under my name, but no signature is included." He further questioned the validity of the University's claim that he resigned.

"I never submitted the notice required under the Employee Agreement to voluntarily resign," he stated. "I let WVU know that I was seeking rehabilitation."

While Huggins remains intent on regaining his job and proving that the University "did not handle the situation appropriately," West Virginia doesn't plan on backing down from its position.

"The University will not accept Mr. Huggins' revocation of his resignation, nor will it reinstate him as head coach of the men's basketball program," the school's statement read. "Moreover, if Mr. Huggins or his counsel attempts to publicly suggest that he somehow did not resign and retire from his position, please be advised that the University will swiftly and aggressively defend itself from these spurious allegations."

Huggins was arrested in Pittsburgh on the night of June 16 for driving under the influence. He had failed multiple sobriety tests and had a blood-alcohol level of .210, which is over 2.5 times the legal limit. Earlier in the offseason, he was suspended by West Virginia for three games and received other penalties after he twice used an anti-gay slur during a radio interview.

It's clear that neither side is ready to back down, so it could be a long fight between Huggins and West Virginia.

The end of Bob Huggins tenure with West Virginia University just became even more complicated.

It was reported that the coach resigned following his DUI arrest in June, but WV MetroNews' Hoppy Kercheval reported that Huggins is claiming that he never resigned from his post, and plans to sue the university if he isn't reinstated.

Kercheval then reported that the University called Huggins' claim 'completely factually inaccurate' and that they received his resignation letter from his wife and that the coach spoke to the team about his departure.

Jeff Jenkins of WVMetroNews reported that the University is getting mixed messages from Huggins' attorneys, and Kercheval reported that the University will not reinstate Huggins under any circumstances.

Huggins had been the head coach of the Mountaineers since 2007 and had a 345-203 overall record. West Virginia qualified for the NCAA Tournament six times in those years, advancing to the Sweet 16 three times.

The controversy surrounding the coach in recent months began when he used an anti-LGBT slur on a radio appearance in Cincinnati and was suspended and fined by the University. This all preceded the DUI incident, and his resignation was announced shortly thereafter.

The University named Josh Eilert as the new interim head basketball coach in June. He had been with the team since 2007 alongside Huggins and was named a full-time assistant in 2022.

The fallout of Bob Huggins' resignation from West Virginia continued Monday.

Former Mountaineers power forward Tre Mitchell announced on Twitter that he has committed to Kentucky. Mitchell entered the transfer portal on Friday and visited Lexington over the weekend, according to 247Sports' Travis Branham.

This will be Mitchell's fourth stop in his college career, as he began his career at UMass and also spent a year at Texas. He has one season of eligibility left.

Mitchell averaged 11.7 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 34 games for the Mountaineers. He was led the team in minutes per game and was tied for second in scoring. West Virginia went 19-15 and lost to Maryland in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

The Mountaineers have had several players enter the transfer portal following Huggins' resignation, and Mitchell is the first to officially leave. The futures of Joe Touissant and Mohamed Wague are still up in the air, while Kerr Kriisa opted to withdraw his request and remain in Morgantown.

The university recently named assistant coach Josh Eilert as the interim head coach, a move attributed to players entering the portal. Huggins had been at the team's helm since 2007, and Eilert has been involved with the program since then and was promoted to full-time assistant in 2022.

Kentucky went 22-12 in 22-23 and lost to Kansas State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

One week after Bob Huggins resigned as head basketball coach at West Virginia, one of his longtime assistants, Josh Eilert, is going to replace him on an interim basis for the 2023-24 season.

The school announced its decision Saturday following a report by CBS Sports' Matt Norlander that Eilert was expected to move into the role.

Stadium's Jeff Goodman added West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker used a search firm to look into "big names" who might have been able to take over, but the talent pool was limited at this point in the offseason.

Huggins, who was arrested in Pittsburgh on suspicion of DUI, released a statement on June 17 announcing his resignation from West Virginia:

The 69-year-old was originally hired by the Mountaineers in April 2007. He spent 16 seasons with the program, racking up a 345-203 record with 11 NCAA tournament appearances.

West Virginia advanced to the Final Four during the 2009-10 season for the first time in 51 years.

In the wake of Huggins' resignation, Tre Mitchell, Kerr Kriisa and Joe Toussaint have all entered the transfer portal.

Mitchell led the team in rebounding (5.5 per game) and tied for second in scoring (11.7 points per game) last season. Toussaint averaged 9.4 points per game in his first season with the program after transferring from Iowa.

Kriisa is back in the transfer portal after committing to West Virginia in April. He spent the previous three seasons at the University of Arizona.

Eilert worked with Huggins for 17 seasons dating back to his time as a graduate assistant at Kansas State in 2006-07. He made the move to West Virginia in 2007.

The Kansas State alum previously worked as an interim assistant coach and was hired as an assistant coach in July 2022. This will be his first stint as a head coach in college basketball.

Eilert is taking over a West Virginia program that finished 19-15 last season. The Mountaineers made the NCAA tournament as a No. 9 seed, losing in the first round 67-65 to Maryland.

More dominoes are beginning to fall following the resignation of West Virginia men's basketball coach Bob Huggins.

ESPN's Jonathan Givony reported Kerr Kriisa is re-entering the transfer portal. The former Arizona guard committed to the Mountaineers in April.

CBS Sports' Jon Rothstein reported WVU guard Joe Toussaint is on his way out as well, along with forward Tre Mitchell, per Travis Branham of 247Sports. Mitchell has already lined up a visit with Kentucky.

Huggins' departure came shortly after he was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence in Pittsburgh. He had already found himself in hot water for using an anti-gay slur toward Xavier fans and mocking Catholics during a radio interview.

The Mountaineers have yet to hire a full-time replacement for the Hall of Famer.

At a time when college athletes have more freedom than ever, the program was inevitably going to experience some turnover.

Kriisa told Givony he's open to rejoining West Virginia pending the outcome of the current coaching search.

"For now, I'm entering the portal, and want to get this figured out as soon as possible," he said.

Kriisa figured to play a big role in the Mountaineers backcourt. He averaged 9.9 points and 5.1 assists as a junior in 2022-23.

Mitchell, meanwhile, was to be the team's leading returning scorer (11.7 points) and rebounder (5.5 boards) from last season. That he's already on Kentucky's radar is a sign of the fifth-year senior's talent.

Toussaint, meanwhile, averaged 9.4 points and 2.6 assists in 2022-23 after transferring from Iowa.

Whoever succeeds Huggins could be inheriting a difficult situation.

West Virginia men's basketball coach Bob Huggins announced Saturday he has submitted a letter of resignation following his recent DUI arrest:

The school responded in a statement that it has accepted the 69-year-old's resignation:

Stadium's Jeff Goodman first reported that Huggins informed the team of his decision to resign Saturday.

Pete Thamel of ESPN and Ethan Bock of WV Sports Now provided more context into the decision:

Huggins was in tears when he spoke to the team Saturday, per Goodman.

Huggins was arrested in Pittsburgh for driving under the influence. The criminal complaint against him stated he failed multiple sobriety tests and had a blood-alcohol level of .210, which is over 2.5 times the legal limit.

It was Huggins' second infraction of the 2023 offseason. In May, West Virginia suspended him for three games, reduced his salary by $1 million and required him to attend sensitivity training after he twice used an anti-gay slur during a radio interview. His multi-year contract was amended to one that would be reevaluated on a year-to-year basis.

Huggins' career record of 935-414 places him eighth on the all-time wins list among men's college coaches. Prior to joining West Virginia in 2007, he also served as head coach at Akron, Cincinnati and Kansas State. He has made 26 NCAA tournament appearances with two trips to the Final Four in 1992 with Cincinnati and in 2010 with West Virginia.

During his time with the Mountaineers, Huggins has led the team to a 345-203 record and 11 trips to the Big Dance. He is a three-time Conference USA Coach of the Year and one-time Big 12 Coach of the Year.

Huggins was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as part of the class of 2022.

Hunter Dickinson's journey to Kansas after transferring from the University of Michigan wasn't strictly about maximizing his name, image and likeness earnings.

Speaking to ESPN's Dan Murphy, Dickinson explained the Jayhawks weren't the "highest bidder" and that other programs said he'd be able to earn more NIL money when he was trying to find a new school.

Dickinson was a surprise entrant into the transfer portal after a successful three-year stint at Michigan. He explained on the Roundball Podcast in May his decision to leave the Wolverines was a selfish one.

"It took a lot of courage," Dickinson said (h/t The Athletic's Austin Meek). "I did have a legacy there, and I basically gave that up to try to be selfish and do what's best for me and my career and not what's best for anybody else's career."

Dickinson also noted he earned "less than six figures" during the 2022-23 season at Michigan, and he expects to earn more than that at Kansas.

Meek noted in February that Michigan was behind other major athletic programs across the country in the NIL race because it didn't launch major collectives that would be able to provide financial support to athletes until the summer of 2022.

According to Meek, one proposed nonprofit foundation that "sought to raise $250 million by targeting the football program's wealthiest boosters" never got off the ground.

While that proposed nonprofit was aimed more at the football program, the basketball program has started to fall behind.

Per 247Sports composite rankings, the Wolverines' incoming class for 2023-24 ranks fourth in the Big Ten with five total commits, including four 4-star prospects.

Michigan has gone 37-31 over the past two seasons and missed the NCAA tournament in 2022-23. Head coach Juwan Howard led the program to the Elite Eight and Sweet 16 in back-to-back years in 2020-21 and 2021-22.

Dickinson led the Wolverines in scoring and rebounding in each of the past three seasons. He will join a Kansas squad that has the fourth-best incoming freshman class in the country, led by 5-star small forward Gradey Dick.

Arthur Kaluma is moving from the Big East to the Big 12.

The former Creighton Blue Jay has committed to continue his collegiate basketball career with Kansas State.

Kaluma was rated as the second-best player available in the transfer portal and helped lead Creighton to the Elite Eight in the 2023 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball tournament. The rising junior has averaged 11.1 points and 5.7 rebounds in his two-season career.

Kaluma possesses a 6'7", 220-lbs frame and had been rated as a four-star recruit and the No. 51 overall prospect in the Class of 2021. He had been linked various schools since entering the portal in May, including Kentucky and Alabama. He also had declared for the 2023 NBA Draft, but withdrew his name at the early entry deadline.

In the end, he ends up in Manhattan, Kansas, where he will try to lead the Wildcats to a national championship. Kansas State also reached the Elite Eight in this year's March Madness, losing to Florida Atlantic 79-76.

The Wildcats have made strong use of the portal in the past, as they added Keyontae Johnson before the 2022-23 season and he would go on to be named a third-team All-American.

Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is continuing to explore potential avenues toward expansion amid the ongoing era of conference realignment, and two storied basketball programs are being eyed.

According to CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd, Gonzaga and UConn are under consideration by the Big 12, but one school is more likely to be added to the conference than the other.

"There has been 'mutual admiration' at the presidential level between Gonzaga and the Big 12; however, there is stronger 'momentum' for UConn to join the league than Gonzaga at the moment," Dodd stated.

UConn, which won its fifth men's basketball national championship this year, reportedly would be added as a full member, while Gonzaga would be added for basketball only.

Nothing is imminent, as Dodd pointed out that the Big 12 "continues to wait for the Pac-12 to reveal a new media rights figure to its members before taking the next step in that pursuit." The Bulldogs are also being pursued by the Pac-12, which would make more sense for them geographically.

Yormark has lofty goals for Big 12 basketball, as Dodd noted he's seeking separate media rights contracts for basketball and football, which has never been done before in the modern era of Power Five conferences.

"We're going to consider all options," Yormark said at last week's Big 12 spring meetings. "We do see the upside in basketball for all the right reasons. We think it is undervalued and there is a chance for us to double down as the No. 1 basketball conference in America, but football is the driver. We all know that."

While adding a pair of powerhouse basketball programs would be an unprecedented move, Dodd said the local view of UConn joining the Big 12 "has been described as mixed." The Huskies would be sacrificing some of their ties to the Northeast in favor of playing in the South and Midwest. They would likely lose many of their longtime Big East rivalries.

Also, UConn would owe the Big East at least $30 million in exit fees if it departed before its seventh year as a member, and the school is about to enter its fourth.