Kansas Basketball: Julius Randle's Trimmed List Includes Jayhawks

The No. 2 overall basketball recruit in the nation (via Rivals.com) has trimmed his list to four potential teams.

Julius Randle, a 6'9" 240-pound power forward from Prestonwood Christian Academy (Plano, Texas), eliminated Oklahoma and North Carolina State on Thursday from his list of six schools. Florida, Kansas, Kentucky and Texas remain in the hunt for his services.

After calling his January 25th visit to Raleigh the best visit yet, the decision to remove Mark Gottfried's Wolfpack is a little surprising, but not shocking.  Randle would visit Kansas just three weeks later after taking trips to Kentucky and Florida prior to the season.

The bruising forward was sidelined for the majority of his senior season with a foot injury, but managed to earn a late selection to the McDonald's All-American team on Wednesday. Randle set a March 20th date for his college announcement.

“I’m not sure where I want to go,” Randle told USA Today Sports. “But this can be a stressful thing, and I set the date to give myself a cutoff for a decision. I don’t want it to linger on. I feel like I’m confident enough in myself that by that time I’ll feel 100 percent about where I’ll go. For now, I’m just enjoying being a McDonald’s All American.”

The Jayhawks' Bill Self has five committed recruits in the 2013 class with four 4-star players leading the way, but only one big man in Joel Embiid. 

Kansas will lose both Kevin Young and Jeff Withey to graduation, leaving them with little-used forward Justin Wesley, two sophomores-to-be in Jamari Traylor and Perry Ellis, along with redshirt freshman Landen Lucas.