Kansas basketball announces it signed international prospect, small forward Johnny Furphy
LAWRENCE — Kansas basketball head coach Bill Self announced Thursday the program has signed small forward Johnny Furphy.
Furphy is an international prospect from Melbourne, Australia. The Jayhawks list him at 6-foot-8 and 202 pounds. And he’ll be a freshman this upcoming season after reclassifying to be a part of the Class of 2023.
“Johnny is a youngster that we saw in person for the first time at the NBA Academy Development camp in Atlanta during the July period, and then we saw him multiple times the next week in Las Vegas,” Self said in a KU release. “He is one of the most gifted, skilled young kids in the 2023 class and certainly as gifted and skilled as any player remaining that we could recruit. He’s been well trained at the Center of Excellence in Australia. He’s well beyond his years from his feel and basketball IQ standpoint. The platform at the NBA Global Academy has allowed him to be seen and recruited at this level. We are very excited about him and think his future is very bright.”
Furphy is one of three freshmen to join Kansas’ roster for the upcoming season. He joins guards in Elmarko Jackson and Jamari McDowell. At one point the Jayhawks had four, but Marcus Adams Jr. (Gonzaga) and Chris Johnson (Texas) elected to instead play college basketball elsewhere.
Furphy played for Centre of Excellence, a Basketball Australia development program. According to the release, the Australian Institute of Sport hosts it alongside the NBA Global Academy. And it was through NBA Academy Games in Atlanta earlier this year that a lot of attention started to come Furphy’s way.
Whether or not Furphy makes his presence felt right away as a freshman will be determined in time. But Kansas is at 11 scholarship players now for the upcoming season, and Self has mentioned that the intention is for returning forward Zach Clemence to redshirt. So, Furphy should at least be able to provide some valuable depth.
“I think everybody knows that Kansas is one of the basketball programs in the United States but what made the difference in the end was coach Self explaining the role he had in mind for me,” Furphy said in an interview with 247Sports. “To be honest, I was nervous about coming to such a big program but coach (Bill) Self has given me confidence that he both wants and needs me at Kansas.”
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Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas basketball announces signing of small forward Johnny Furphy
