According to Pete Nakos of On3 Sports, Rylan Griffen is entering the transfer portal. He is looking for a fresh start for his last year of college after a disappointing season at the University of Kansas.
Rylan Griffen on the Move Again
Griffen, a former top-50 recruit, spent the first two years of his career at the University of Alabama. The sharpshooting guard thrived in Nate Oats’ system, prioritizing pace and three-point shooting. He started 33 games as a sophomore on the Crimson Tide’s 2024 Final Four team, averaging 11.2 points per game while shooting 39% from three-point range.
He entered the transfer portal after last season and committed to the University of Kansas as part of Head Coach Bill Self’s highly lauded portal class, but he mightily struggled throughout the season.
BREAKING: Kansas guard Rylan Griffen has entered the NCAA Transfer Portal, @PeteNakos_ reports. https://t.co/mzMe9luCgH pic.twitter.com/TrOYYKgNYH
— On3 (@On3sports) March 31, 2025
He was unable to consistently find a role for himself, only starting 20 games, while averaging just 6.3 points while shooting just 33.6% from the field.
A fresh start seems to be in order for Griffen, who will be looking to find a more comfortable role for himself as a senior where he can return to the heights he achieved as a sophomore.
A Hall of Famer’s Inflection Point
As for the Jayhawks, Griffen’s departure seems to indicate that Head Coach Bill Self is switching gears following two disappointing seasons in which Kansas failed to advance past the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
They came into this season with high expectations, ranked number one in the AP preseason poll, but the group of high-profile players never jelled together on the offensive end.
Veteran returners Dajaun Harris, K.J. Adams, and Hunter Dickinson were all non-shooters, which severely congested the teams’ spacing and made life harder for Griffen, along with the highly lauded transfers A.J. Storr and David Coit.
Kansas was forced to run the offense through Dickinson, who was the only one who could consistently create a shot for himself. However, his style of play demands a ball-stopping style of offense that deprioritizes movement and often leaves others standing and watching.
KEEP READING: Kansas Basketball Transfer Portal: Full List of Players Entering and Exiting
While the Jayhawks played to their usual standard defensively, they were ranked just 50th offensively, according to Ken Pomeroy, and they floundered to a 21-13 finish. They were a seven seed in the tournament, the first time since 2000 that they were lower than a four seed, and lost to Arkansas in the first round.
This offseason will be a major inflection point for Head Coach Bill Self. The Hall of Famer, who has won two national titles with the Jayhawks, has been highly successful in attracting top portal talent to Lawrence, but he has struggled to find pieces that work together.
With roster construction playing a bigger role than ever in the transfer portal era, the veteran Self is being outflanked by the newer coaching superstars such as Duke’s Jon Scheyer and Connecticut’s Danny Hurley.
Without a major recruiting class coming in, Self has to strike gold in the portal this year, not just in terms of talent but in terms of basketball fit. If not, real questions may arise about his ability to adjust to the new era of college basketball.
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