Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - ALERT: 5-Star Tyran Stokes Narrows to THREE Schools Including Kansas | Can Bill Self OVERCOME Nike?

Episode Date: November 2, 2025

Tyran Stokes, the #1 recruit in the 2026 class, has Kansas Jayhawks basketball in his final three despite a major complication. The five-star prospect holds a Nike NIL deal while Kansas is an Adidas school, creating unprecedented recruiting challenges that could reshape college basketball's NIL landscape.Derek Johnson breaks down whether the Jayhawks have a realistic shot against Nike schools Kentucky and Oregon, examining exceptions like Ohio State's Jeremiah Smith who navigated similar brand conflicts. The analysis covers how landing Stokes would transform Kansas's 2026 recruiting class alongside point guard Taylen Kinney, impact Javon Bardwell's reclassification decision, and position Bill Self to strategically build through the transfer portal. Key discussions include creative NIL budgeting solutions, the timing of Stokes's decision, and whether Kansas can become the first program to buck the shoe brand trend during active recruitment.Can the Kansas Jayhawks overcome the Nike-Adidas barrier to land college basketball's top prospect?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!DoorDashWith DoorDash Streaks, you save every Saturday you order — stack it up all season and you could save up to $250. Order this Saturday. Keep the streak alive. Fuel your gameday — only with DoorDash. Terms apply. Promo period through 11/18.SupplyHouseJoin the free TradeMaster program today and score serious perks like priority shipping, lower prices, and a dedicated support line. Visit SupplyHouse.com to sign up for free and use promo code SHCOLLEGE5 for 5% off your first order. GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONCOLLEGE for $20 off your first purchase. Terms and conditions apply.FanDuelToday's episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner, visit the FanDuel App today and start planning your futures bets now.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Number one recruit Tyron Stokes has an NIL deal with Nike, but Kansas is still in the finalist list of the final three. Do they have a real shot or is this for show? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What's going on, Derek Johnson here? This is Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And thank you to the everydayers catching each and every episode of the show, including our bonus shows like this one or on YouTube where you can like and subscribe to the show as well. And on this bonus episode of Locked on Jayhawks, we're discussing Tyrant Stokes, the number one recruit in the class of

2026, who has narrowed his finalists to three schools, one of them including the Kansas Jayhawks. We're going to break down the news because he has that Nike NIL deal. What exactly that means, is it an uphill battle for KU? Try to get to some examples of players who have shaken away from that. I don't know. We'll get to that. And then 2026 recruiting as a whole, what this would mean, whether they get them or not for the Kansas Jayhawks.

Let's start with the news, though, for KU. And that would be this tweet from Travis Brannum of 24-7 sports. He said, Tyron Stokes, the number one player in the country, has announced that he is officially down to three schools. Kentucky, Oregon, and Kansas. Louisville and USC are no longer in the running. And so the, I don't know, the importance of that, obviously from a standpoint of if you're looking at Nike versus Adidas, because obviously Nike is a big part of this with them signing Tyron Soakes to an NIL deal. Well, Kansas is an Adidas school. The other two in both Kentucky and Oregon are Nike schools. Oregon is the Nike school. a certain way. And well, but you know what I mean. Then you think about, okay, Louisville being an Adidas school getting the cut, but Kansas did not. Now, it kind of becomes an interesting thing when you're having this conversation of, okay, is this that Kansas has a real shot here? I mean,

Kansas seems to be, you know, trying everything in their power. Is this a ploy by Tyron Stokes and his camp to be like, hey, you know, we want to get even more NIL money in the best avenue to doing that, whether it's from Nike, whether it's from one of these schools, is to bring a different shoe brand into this, just in the finalist list to drive up the money a little bit more, as opposed to just Nike competing with Nike or school competing with school in the same shoe brand. I'm not saying that's what's happening here, but does that happen with other recruits? I'm sure it does, to some extent, might or might not happen. I do tend to think this is one that Kansas might actually have a real shot in, and that's kind of

weird to say, but I still do say, even though it feels like I think this is really Tyron Stokes saying that I think Kansas, like, that's how I'm viewing it. I am viewing it actually in that lens of being more optimistic that I think Tyrant Sox is saying, yeah, Kansas is one of my three favorite schools that I'm being recruited by. And that's how I'm viewing it. At the same point in time, because of that Nike NIL deal, I still do feel like it's very much an uphill battle. And I almost would be a little bit surprised still if he does pick Kansas. I know there's a kind of two separate, you know, conflicting thoughts, but that's kind of how I feel about this. And I want to talk about why we'll try to get into some exceptions to the rule, so to speak.

I couldn't find a long list, but we'll do that on the other side. This is locked on Jayhawks. Today's episode of LOJ is brought to you by Game Time. Maybe you'll be looking to game time to try to get tickets to see Tyrant Stokes soon. But college football is certainly ongoing right now. College basketball is back. I don't know how you couldn't be more exciting, whether it's the pregame leading up to it, The game itself, the post-game, hopefully you're enjoying the win.

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Again, Tyrant Stokes down to three schools, Kansas, the one non-N Nike school. And that's where things get complicated here. Tyron Stokes has an NIL deal with Nike. Do you think Nike wants to steer Tyron Stokes to an actual Nike school to play? You bet. Now, there is actually some exceptions to the rule, and one of them is actually one of the best players in college football. Jeremiah Smith, the stud receiver for Ohio State. Ohio State is a Nike school.

Jeremiah Smith signed an NIL deal with Adidas. So that would be a great example to be like, okay, and during the games, he has to wear Nike gear, right? He is the Nike jersey, is the Nike shoes. But when he's outside of the games, he can wear as much Adidas gear as you want. He can, you know, post on social media. He can, I don't know, do a commercial for Adidas if he wants to. But during the game, that's not the case. So it is a weird, uncomfortable situation, but it's not one that is totally different.

Now, I will say, this might be important to note. Jeremiah Smith signed that Adidas NIL deal this past summer. I forget of his June or July. I don't know. Maybe that doesn't matter the fact that he is on an Adidas NIL deal while playing for Nike school. Maybe that's enough to be like, okay, see, there's an example. It's Tyrant Stokes.

But if we're looking at this from a perspective of, hey, from a recruitment standpoint, like, you're still being recruited. So Nike is in your ear. You already have an NIL deal with them. You already have a relationship. You already have somebody you're talking to there. Don't you think that's going to be another influence on you making your recruiting decision? Whereas with Jeremiah Smith, he already made that decision.

He's already at a school, right? So Adidas could go to Jeremiah Smith and be like, hey, you should transfer to this Adidas school. He'd be like, dude, I just won a national championship and I'm probably going to be, I'm going to be like a top five pick in the NFL draft when I'm eventually eligible in a couple of years. I'm not leaving Ohio State. That's a much different conversation. So I don't know that that is the best one. I did have somebody email me, which I don't know how this person got my email.

So please don't just be randomly emailing me. But Caleb Holt is one of the top 10 recruits in the class as well. And apparently he has an Adidas NIL deal. But apparently some of the rumored schools for him are Nike schools. I don't know if that's true or not. And I guess that'll be one where it's like, okay, again, like going back to the thing, sometimes this can be, okay, you're rumored here, you're rumored there. But is it based on money?

Is it trying to drive up money elsewhere? I'm not saying maybe he has to be. up in a Nike school, maybe he ends up in his Adidas school. If he does with an Adidas, NIL deal, end up at a Nike school, then great. That'll be another example that we can kind of point to, although it feels like Stokes is going to commit before him. So maybe, I don't know, that example won't end up mattering. And maybe today's day and age is just too different to be able to pull examples, right? Because NIL is not a thing that's been around for too long. So like, in the same way that it's only a matter of time before NIL came around or there was

only a matter of time before RevShare came around her. It's only a matter of time, before, you know, this or that happens, maybe to that same standpoint, maybe to that same, you know, idea, it's only a matter of time before somebody has an NIL deal with a shoe brand and goes to a different school that they're just like, I don't care, right? Eventually, you would think it's going to happen. Is Tyrant Soaks the one that buck the trend? Maybe. Maybe he is, right? And that'll kind of be the hope that the KU can play on.

It does become a little bit, you would think, more difficult for KU from a money standpoint, point because you can't use the Adidas money to kind of back them in the same way that, you know, maybe with Darren Peterson, you have Adidas is paying some of it. KU's probably paying some of it, right? So that just complicates things. But maybe you can work around that in a way to be like, hey, Adidas, can you do us a favor? Can you help pay for this other player like Taylin Kinney, for instance? And then we'll have more money to pay.

I don't know. There's ways that you can budget around it and kind of work around it. But I guess it's a good thing that KU, you know, even made the finalist list. Certainly, I still think that Kentucky and Oregon, those feel like the top spots based on all this with the Nike deal, but you survived one of the next cuts. You're in the final three. So who's to say that we won't be surprised at the end of this thing and maybe make some more twists and turns? All right, how would adding Tyron Sokes, if they can get it done, if they can, you know, get over the hump here and then fight the hard battle against Nike, how would this impact KU in, you know, 2026 and beyond for the Jayhawks? Today's episode of Lockdown Jayhawks is brought to you by Fandual Sportsbook.

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Well, I would say this. I mean, if you can add Stokes, you already have the number one point card in the class in Tailing, Kinney. You already have a really good recruiting class in total with everything you have. But if you're able to add Stokes to what is already with Kinney, you would have the number one player with the number one point card, that's probably good. going to wind up end up being the best duo of just two players that anybody would get in the class right i feel pretty confident in saying that would kind of be the case i think it would also like this is the biggest thing to me i mean the short i don't know the smaller decisions it's not that small but um like giovon bardwell probably stays in the class of 2027 instead of reclassifying

would be my guess um which therefore adding tyrant soaks in 2026 means that your roster in 2027 is probably better as well because you get Javon Bardwell for that year and set. Or you just load up even more in 2026. Probably means you're done recruiting at the high school level in 26. If you land Stokes, I don't know, maybe you're done with it now, but who knows? We've talked about guys like Christian Collins or there maybe a couple other elite players out there that maybe you could be interested in. Maybe, maybe, or maybe it's later in the game for KU. If you had Stokes, it feels like it would kind of just be done regardless. You might be done anyway. But here's the big one to me. If you land Tyrant Stokes, and it feels like the way this is trending with him cutting

his list down, I don't know, like is he going to be committing before the end of 2025 or certainly, I don't know, it doesn't feel like at this point it's going to be like a spring commitment. It feels like it's going to be coming soonish, I guess is how I would just read between the tea leaves. But it would put you in a position where when you get to next spring, when you get to next off season, in the same way that you were able to build around Darren Peterson and be like, this is what we're looking for in terms of players, in terms of fit, in terms of role. guys that we can make that work and now you would know that ahead of time going into the off season in the same way that you knew ahead of time because Peterson was a commitment in and I want

to say the winter as well or fall or winter um you would have that again and the ability to kind of know going into the off season hey this is what we're looking for this is the type of players we can start scouting now or do this or that and we don't have to just kind of go in with being like okay we need you know a star player and then we need guys who can compliment them on um You can have a better idea of, okay, this is archetype, this is what we know. And now we're just kind of building, perfecting the roster around it, kind of as best as possible. Go for the elite role players in the portal, as opposed to spending, you know, $3 million on getting a star player. That would be a nice place to be for Bill Self and company.

So we'll see if they can close the deal. And certainly, again, you're facing Nike. Bill Self has pulled out some amazing recruitment so far, though. So I wouldn't totally doubt him, even though I would be a little surprised. I've been surprised before, and I hope I'm surprised again on this one. I don't know for this episode of Locked on Jayhawks, you can find our show anywhere you get your podcast, including on our YouTube page where you can like and subscribe to the show. Check out our KU postcast from the Oklahoma State game. Well, plenty more KU basketball content coming up as well with the first game of the season and more come up this week.

So thanks to joining us on Locked on Jayhawks.