Locked On Jayhawks - Daily Podcast On Kansas Jayhawks Football & Basketball - EXPERTS PREDICT Kansas to Land 2026 #1 Prospect Tyran Stokes | Potential 2026-2026 Jayhawks Lineup

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Kansas Jayhawks surge to the front in the race for Tyran Stokes, the nation’s top basketball recruit for the class of 2026. Has momentum truly shifted, and could Bill Self’s squad be on the verge of a program-defining commitment? Stokes’ recent crystal ball update, Nike NIL ties, and move to Rainier Beach—a KU-connected powerhouse—raise the stakes for Kansas, Kentucky, Oregon, and Louisville.Derek Johnson breaks down Stokes’ dominant high school performances, including a 52-point outburst and evolving three-point shooting skills. Potential lineups for 2026-27 take shape: will future Jayhawks, like Taylen Kinney and Flory Badunga, join Stokes for a formidable NBA-caliber roster? Key questions arise about bench depth, transfer portal targets, and chemistry with Bill Self. Can Kansas leverage Allen Fieldhouse’s atmosphere and coaching connections to close the deal? The road to a talent-loaded dynasty may start now.Everydayer Club  If you never miss an episode, it’s time to make it official. Join the Locked On Everydayer Club and get ad-free audio, access to our members-only Discord, and more — all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more and join your team’s community: https://lockedonpodcasts.com/everydayerclub  Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! 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.WayfairGet last-minute hosting essentials, gifts for all your loved ones, and decor to celebrate the holidays for WAY less.Head to https://Wayfair.com right now to shop all things home. Wayfair. Every style. Every home.  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.

Has the momentum shifted for Kansas to land the number one recruit in the class of 2026, Tyrant Stokes? You are Locked on Jayhawks, your daily podcast on the Kansas Jayhawks, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey, what's going on? Derek Johnson here with another episode of Locked on Jayhawks. Thanks for making it your first listen every day. And thank you to the everydayers catch in each and every episode of the show. Thank you for making Lockdown, the number one sports podcast network. On today's episode of the show, we are breaking down an expert predicting Kansas to land Tyron Stokes. We're going to get into all that, how he's doing right now, and what the potential roster for KU in 2026 to 2027 could look like is certainly things not going well right now for this team.

So maybe looking ahead and getting a little hope will be a good thing for KU. Let's just start right here. So the news here comes from, I think it was on first. Friday, the 24-7 sports expert staff projection crew. I don't know who goes into that or what, but they had a crystal ball, I believe, on Tyrant Stokes to eventually wind up at Kentucky, which obviously you go back to Tyrant Stokes, the number one recruit in the class of 2026. He visited KU back last off season. He's originally from the state of Kentucky and, you know, I was seen as Kentucky in Louisville and Kansas and Oregon and some of these schools that, you know, taking it to his finalist list.

And he signed an NIL deal with Nike, which seemed to make it kind of a slam dunk situation of, okay, of course, he's going to end up at a Nike school. And of course, he's going to end up at, you know, Kentucky. But Kansas continued to stay on him. And I guess now they're at a point where, you know, obviously we've talked about his movement in high school, which we'll get more to in our second segment.

But now all of a sudden that crystal ball has been changed from Kentucky to Kansas. And so can and you know, you have to take that with a grain of salt because again, it was on Kentucky earlier and now it's switched. So like why couldn't it just switch back? But obviously good news for Kansas. And it kind of comes with some scuttlebut about trying to set up a visit to KU for this season. Obviously he did visit, like I said, back last summer. And we got into like, oh, could there be any potential for a reclassification for Kansas? but he didn't get to come when there was a game.

He didn't get to come and see the Allen Field House, you know, a great environment. So if you're looking to kind of seal the deal, close the deal, and you're trending in the right direction, you know, get that Allen crowd, get that Allen Fieldhouse environment and get him to a home KU game. And maybe that's what pushes it over the top to finally get that commitment, right? And so I think just in general, this would be good news for 2020. to 2027 because it's a roster that could feature obviously a lot of talent potentially for KU. I do think right now we're in a zone where it's like, okay, you're starting to wonder,

you know, new players in general coming into Bill's Health System. It continues to be a theme that over these last three, four years, it's not really working out in a lot of different ways. And at the end of the day, like being the leader in a recruiting battle is different than actually getting the commitment, though a little bit of intertwining things there. So they need to close. But still, even knowing all that, like this could potentially be a good news in terms of, you know,

talent infusion into KU in 2026 to 2027 if they can seal the deal. All right. All right. Let's get into how is Stokes doing right now and what potentially could the roster look like in 2026 to 27? Today's episode of the show is brought to you by Fandul's Sportsbook. The Wildcard round is here. Fan Duel is officially in playoff mode. Every game day during the NFL playoffs,

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he's the number one recruit in the country. So you expect him to be doing. well and that is the case. So he, as a junior in high school, averages, 21 points, nine rebounds, four assists in Southern California in a good league. And then I guess depending on your point of view, kicked out or leaves the school, whatever you want to say,

he winds up at Rainier Beach in Washington, which we've detailed on a previous episode, why that is good for KU, just a quick refresh on that. If you're new to the show or you don't remember what happened there, but Rainier Beach is somewhere that KU has like real ties to. And we kind of viewed it as like, was this a situation where Stoke,

was, you know, was looking for a new school and he was asking around people he trusted to be like, hey, where can I go that's going to help here? And if that is the case, if he ended up doing that, if he asked people he trusted, like, hey, I'm looking for somewhere to, you know, go, then that would mean that he trusts Kansas, right? If he wound up at a school that KU has connections with, doesn't that tell you that he probably asked, like, say Curtis Townsend, who, you know, has a big connection there like hey where do you think I should go and he was like hey I would go here like that would tell you that there's some level of trust and that would be good news for KU but KU's had some players come from there um obviously again the Curtis Townsend connection Jamal Crawford came

from there who he recruited and coached at Michigan um a couple like Roderick Stewart went there a couple other Jayhawks went there I think Rio Adams might have went there um so point being like those are good things for KU right so he had 31 points in his debut for them he actually had a 52 point game back in mid-December in which one of the most impressive things like when you think of tyrant soaks he's this six-foot-seven kind of wing guard type that is a power athlete that can you know run down the lane and throw down a huge dunk there's the athleticism there's the power there's the speed there's the physicality but if you go watch the highlights of his 52 point game I want to say he made like eight threes and there are there are three or four of them where he's like

making like a off the dribble step back three. And the reason that I found that so impressive is because if you're talking about a dude who has, you know, upper tier athleticism and power and some of those parts of his game and he's able to do the step back three thing, that is an incredible bag to have, right? I saw he had like 30 points like four days ago, four, five days ago late December. He had a game with like 29.7 assists. So anything you can find, I can't really find full stats, but everything you can find on the games he's having are about as good as you would kind of expect and seems to be living up to the billing of the number one player on the court right now. Now, it's interesting because there's definitely a question, I think, going around among KU fans of like, how would

Bill self-handle his personality? Would they clash at all? Would everything go well? I mean, there are certain questions there that are fair and realistic. It may be made a little bit easier by the fact that it would be a one and done. So you're not having to, you know, I don't know, I think of when Andy Reid added Terrell Owens to the Philadelphia Eagles. There's like a one year thing, but they go to the Super Bowl. But then it's like you can't sustain dealing with that, but you would just need the one year. And for that reason, you know, some of those questions with everything that's been going on lately with KU still prefer the idea of Bruce Branch, who reclassed up. He was the number one prospect in 27, reclassed up to 2026. He's a really good shooter. He has an

I'll deal with Adidas. That to me is KU should be their number one target, but I think they're viewing it as Tyron Stokes is their number one target at this point in time. And, you know, if branch is one, Stokes is still, you know, B or one B or two or whatever it is, but this would still be a huge ad if KU could do it, right? And with KU trending a little bit to another disappointing season at this point in time, you're looking for kind of a ceiling to push them farther than they've been in quite a bit. And so Let's get to what that roster could potentially look like in 2026 to 2027 with Tyrant Stokes. Today's episode is brought to you by Wayfair. The New Year's here, and it's the perfect time to reset your routine, refresh your space.

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or Locked-on College basketball for your second list in as well. So what could potentially the roster look like for KU come 20-26 to 20-27? So I think right now you're sitting on 11 scholarship players for the 26-27 season. You can have up to 15. Now, who knows if KU will use all 15?

Are you better off just using 13 or 14? And, you know, whatever money was going to have to go to the 14th or 15th man, that's an extra, I don't know, 100,000, 200,000 that you could lob on to somebody else's deal to get a good player. This is based on the idea that Darren Peterson is going to go pro, obviously. But also, I am counting Florida but don't go back into that. Maybe he's going to want to go pro or whatever, but I don't know that we've seen enough so far that I expect him to be drafted right now.

So right now, if you're looking at potential lineups, Taylin Kinney comes in as currently your highest recruited player. He'll be an incoming freshman. I think he'll be somebody, people like watching, good three-point shooter, freshman coming in. Then you've got El Marco Jackson back as a redshirt sophomore, and that's been up and down this year, so we'll see where that goes. Jamari McDowell is a redshirt junior as well.

So, you know, both him and El Marco, same classification. Then you're looking at the other guards that you have Col Rosario, could be a sophomore. And I think, you know, as much as there's been a bit of a struggle this year for Rosario, I think the hope is that he can take a big leap. Corbin Allen to be a sophomore. He'd have Smeese Calderon as a sophomore. Trent Perry as a freshman wouldn't shock me if he carves out a role with how good defensively he is and what Bill Self wants.

And then you have the big battle. You have Bryson Tiller potentially as a redshirt sophomore. Florida Padunga is a junior. Davian Adkins who you bring in as a high-end four-star crew as a freshman and then Paul M. Bia as a sophomore. If you can have that as your big men, I would feel better about that next year because that's another year of development for the guys that you currently have, plus another body in there who's a very talented player. But that really leaves kind of an opening at that wing position. And that's where Stokes comes into this too, right? Because again, you're talking about Kenny being a guard. McDowell, Rosario, like those guys are, in my estimation, more two guards.

Rosario can play up a little at the three because of some of his athleticism, but I think it's even better if he's playing the two. So then you're kind of looking at, okay, who can play the three for you. And yes, again, Rosario can play there. Like McDowell can play there if he has to, though, you know, they've been, other teams have been, you know, walking them down to the post, right? I think that's where it makes the most sense for KU to make a splash play. If you don't land Stokes, go get a really good three in the transfer portal. Or maybe that's even where Javon comes into play. Bardwell is a really good recruit for KU in the class of 2027, and he's doing really well at OTE right now.

Maybe he reclassifies up. Maybe you even get Stokes and Bardwell, and then you basically say, hey, our starting lineup is going to be like, We're going to go Kinney, Bardwell, Stokes, Tiller, Bedunga. It's going to be a big lineup. Bardwell has the shooting. Kinney has the shooting to make that work. I mentioned Stokes seems to be improving as a shooter. Maybe Tiller can improve as a shooter.

That could be a really fun lineup for KU with a bunch of players who have NBA potential. And that would be a pretty fun place to be. Obviously, you're probably sitting here going, but what about the bench? What about the bench? Because KU has not had good bench production recently or when I say, recently, I don't just mean the last couple games. I mean the last couple years. But anyway, point being, that could be a very talented NBA roster if all comes together. You never know how people are going to do with going pro, transferring, coming back, all that sort of stuff. But at least

on paper right now, if you add Stokes to that, that looks like a pretty nasty lineup of it. Like I said, if you reclassed Bardwell and you had potentially Kinney Stokes, Bardwell, maybe it's just too young of a lineup, but with Tiller Bedunga and some big talent behind them and then guys like McDowell, El Marco Colrosario, maybe pick one or two of the three, you know, to be a rotation player, maybe one transfers or something. Like there is real talent there for the next year's roster. Now, I don't want to give up on this year's team or anything like that. But I guess there's a little bit of opium in the air.

You just hope that it's, hey, you have a big run at the end of this year. And then you carry that over into the following year as well. All right. That'll go 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. See you next time with LOJ.