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Bill Self’s latest addition to the program ‘selfish’?

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The latest trend for talented recruits has been to commit to a school with as much fanfare as humanly possible.

Harrison Barnes took to skype to tell Roy Williams he would be committing to North Carolina. Tony Parker made the coaches chasing him wait for 57 minutes during a memorably long and drawn out press conference. Shabazz Muhammad and Nerlens Noel are just the latest in a long line of recruits to take advantage of empty air time on ESPN U during the spring to announce their collegiate destinations, but they made their announcement while the red carpet was being rolled out for them. Literally.

Over the weekend, Kansas added a new recruit for the Class of 2012, but he didn’t need a spot on national television or an introduction from Lil’ Wayne or a note of congratulations from Barack Obama. All he needed was ... a quiet dinner at a little Mexican joint?:

It was several days after Free State High’s graduation ceremony that Firebird shooting guard Tyler Self decided to act on his dad Bill’s offer to join Kansas University’s basketball team.

“It was my mother, him and I eating dinner at a little Mexican restaurant. I said something like, ‘I want to play.’ They were both kind of surprised. I think they both said, ‘Really?’ at the same time. It was pretty funny,” said Tyler, a 6-foot-2, 160-pounder who told the Journal-World on Monday he’d decided to become a non-scholarship walk-on player on Bill Self’s KU team.


Good for Tyler.

And while Kansas has had some success with walk-on guards in recent seasons -- Brady Morningstar and Connor Teahan come to mind -- Tyler doesn’t exactly seem like the program’s savior. He averaged 3.9 points in high school.

(Photo via KUSports.com)

Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @robdauster.