Kansas basketball’s preparations for the season have continued on the court, and in recruiting. KU just announced it has signed of Nginyu Ngala.
LAWRENCE — When Kansas basketball coach Bill Self met with the media on Monday, July 21, he acknowledged he’d be open to adding another player to the Jayhawks’ roster.
Of course, Self had an idea of what traits that individual would bring to the team. It needed to be someone who could run a team, play the point, shoot it well, be capable of being an insurance policy if someone suffered an injury and, potentially, provide experience. But the point was KU was looking, and hoping that search would lead to another signee ahead of the 2025-26 season.
Fast forward to Friday, July 25, and Kansas is announcing the signing of Nginyu Ngala in a social media post on X. Ngala arrives after most recently spending the 2024-25 campaign as a 5-foot-10 and 180-pound guard at Laurentian University in Canada. At Laurentian this past season, he averaged 14.9 points per game while shooting 40.4% from the field and 39.2% from behind the arc.
“Jayhawk Nation let’s get it!!” Ngala posted, in part, on X, when he revealed his commitment. “Rock Chalk.”
Self had outlined that while he liked the team he had, he thought it was incomplete prior to the June signings of guard Kohl Rosario and center Paul Mbiya. With Rosario and Mbiya, Kansas added shooting on the perimeter and size and depth inside. So, one would venture to guess if Self still had any level of apprehension about his team that feeling has further dissipated.
Together, with their fellow newcomers and those who’ve returned from KU’s squad last season, they’ll look to help the Jayhawks bounce back from a pair of seasons that ended in disappointing fashion. Neither included much postseason success, despite high expectations going into each campaign. Expectations might not be as high nationally ahead of the upcoming season, but with star freshman guard Darryn Peterson on the roster there will no doubt be attention on the games the team plays inside Allen Fieldhouse and elsewhere.
With the additions Kansas had made prior to Ngala’s signing, Self felt they’d ensured the compilation of a roster with size, depth, more shooting, more athleticism and better ball-screen defense. There weren’t the same sort of high-profile transfer additions like the Jayhawks had enjoyed in the recent past, like when center Hunter Dickinson arrived from Michigan ahead of the 2023-24 season. But, Self downplayed how important that is while instead highlighting the value of fit.
Ngala’s addition at the very least seems poised to be a value move, ahead of the time he will be able to have to put in the work necessary to earn a role with the team. And if he can heighten the level of athleticism KU has, it will only add to what Self was looking for overall. When it came to this edition of roster building, athleticism was a priority for him.
“How do you get guys that can get their shoulders past people?” Self said July 21. “How do you get guys that can make plays you can’t coach? I think the last year, we probably had to — this isn’t a knock to our players, our players were good players, but we probably had to manufacture plays and points as opposed to just there’s a loose ball, we jump a little bit higher to get it, which creates a deflection to an uncontested 3. We didn’t get near as much stuff like that last year, as what I hope we can get.”
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He was the 2022 National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas basketball coach Bill Self signs Nginyu Ngala 2025-26 season
Category: General Sports
