While it may not come as a shock after his recent stretch of games, Kansas‘ AJ Storr has been one of the biggest misses in the transfer portal this season.
In a recent list from 247Sports’ Travis Branham, Storr was one of 15 athletes to have their stock reviewed relative to their portal ranking, and he checked in with a major downgrade.
“There’s no denying that AJ Storr’s season at Kansas has been a big disappointment,” Branham said. “During his sophomore season at Wisconsin, Storr was one of the most explosive scorers in the Big Ten. While in Madison, Storr’s strength, athleticism, and talent as a scorer picked up NBA interest. At Wisconsin, before that at St. John’s, and even in high school one thing always stood out to me about Storr: his feel and IQ for the game. Looking back on my ranking and evaluation of Storr, I am actually not too mad at the miss he’s panned out to be.”
After averaging nearly 17 points per game for the Badgers last season, Storr is posting career lows in just about every major statistical category. He’s averaging 6.6 points and 2.1 rebounds per game on 39.2% shooting from the field. In addition to the brutal numbers, the once-great shooter is now hitting just 26.8% of his shots from three-point range.
“It was clear throughout his career that he had talent but also glaring warts,” Branham continued. “When he picked Kansas, I knew it was going to be a ‘sink or swim’ scenario for him due to Bill Self’s style of play. There were two ways it was going to play out. Storr was going to go in and evolve as a player, grow into a more polished and trustworthy two-way guard who can fill it up on offense, and become a much better defender. OR, Storr’s warts with his feel and IQ would limit his ability to learn and adapt to Self’s system, resulting in a hard time on the court.”
Branham finished his evaluation, saying, “Storr’s situation presented two widely varying outcomes, both rather scary extremes. You rank him lower and he hits, you look like a complete fool or you rank him high and he misses, you simultaneously look terrible. Frankly, I decided to bet on one of the best head coaches to ever do it to figure it out with his highly talented transfer.”
Storr was joined by Iowa State’s Joshua Jefferson, who believes he was listed way too low in the offseason transfer portal rankings.
