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One suitor for Duke transfer hopes to land him despite not having an available scholarship

Livingstone v Duke

Livingstone v Duke

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When it was announced earlier this week that forward Semi Ojeleye would be leaving the Duke program, it was expected that the former Parade National Player of the Year would be pursued by many high-level programs. Among those that have reached out thus far are Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri and Wichita State.

According to Kellis Robinett of the Kansas City Star Bruce Weber’s program has been working hard to land Ojeleye, but the Big 12 program has a problem: they’re out of scholarships. MoKan Elite head coach Matt Suther discussed the ongoing process with Robinett on Friday.

“It’s just phone call after phone call after phone call,” Suther said. “It’s a good thing he has all this interest. He and his family are going through the process of dwindling the list down to what schools they want to go visit. They kind of approached it wide open. In a lot of cases when a kid transfers they have a new school in mind.

“That wasn’t the case here. He has listened to schools that recruited him the first time and schools that did not.”


As it stands Kansas State had three openings, with Thomas Gipson and Nino Williams being seniors and guard Jack Karapetyan making the decision to transfer just before the start of the season, but all three scholarships have been accounted for in the Class of 2015 recruiting haul.

With Ojeleye and his family being wide open in the process, it will be interesting to see which school emerges in the weeks before the start of classes in January. And while Kansas State is reported to be interested in landing the talented forward, so are other schools that don’t have the additional concern of freeing up a scholarship for Ojeleye.

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