Just In: Kansas Jayhawks lands commitment from former Mississippi State basketball guard

Shakeel Moore, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound senior from Greensboro, North Carolina and former Mississippi State men’s basketball combo guard, entered the NCAA transfer portal on April 3. He has made the decision to spend his final college basketball season at Kansas. Moore shared the news on Wednesday through his Instagram account.

The announcement, initially reported by On3.com’s Joe Tipton on the social media platform X, came shortly after KU disclosed that guard Elmarko Jackson would be sidelined for the entire 2024-25 season due to a knee injury necessitating surgery.

Starting his collegiate career at North Carolina State, Moore completed three seasons at Mississippi State. In the 2023-24 season with the Bulldogs, he averaged 7.9 points, 2.2 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game, starting 22 of 33 games and playing an average of 23.5 minutes per contest.

Shooting 46.8% from the field, he made 96 of 205 shots and connected on 36.3% of his 3-point attempts with 29 successful shots out of 80. His free-throw percentage stood at 70.2%. Notable for his defensive skills, Moore recorded multiple steals in 41 out of 99 career games for the Bulldogs.

Ranked 115th in the recruiting class of 2020 by Rivals.com, Moore attended Piedmont Classical High School in Browns Summit, North Carolina for three years before transferring to Moravian Prep in Hickory, N.C. for his senior season. During his time at Piedmont Classic, he led his team to three consecutive Carolina Athletic Association for Schools of Choice (CAASC) state championships in 2016-17, 2017-18, and 2018-19.

At Kansas, Moore joins a roster of 12 scholarship players for the 2024-25 season, including incoming transfers Rylan Griffen (Alabama), Zeke Mayo (South Dakota State), and AJ Storr (Wisconsin), as well as incoming freshmen Rakease Passmore and Flory Bidunga, alongside returning players such as Jackson, Hunter Dickinson, Dajuan Harris, KJ Adams, Jamari McDowell, and Zach Clemence.

The team also includes six non-scholarship players, with former Rice scholarship player Noah Shelby among them. Despite being allowed 13 scholarship players, KU will likely maintain a roster size of 12 to adhere to a self-imposed sanction that reduced the number of scholarship players over three seasons.