Kansas announces signing of Cliff Alexander

Official press release from the University of Kansas:

Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self announced that power forward Cliff Alexander from Curie High School in Chicago has signed a National Letter of Intent to play for the Jayhawks.

“We are so excited about Cliff,” Self said. “Since (assistant coach) Jerrance Howard has been on board, he has done a great job in recruiting both Cliff and his family. Cliff comes from an excellent high school program and has been well coached by Mike Oliver his entire high school career. Mike has been one of the longest tenured coaches in the Chicago area and has produced a several of great prospects like Cliff.”

Ranked No. 3 by ESPN100 and No. 4 by Rivals.com, Alexander averaged 21.3 points, 13.0 rebounds and 5.0 blocks his junior year for Oliver at Curie High School where he earned all-state first-team honors following the 2012-13 season. Other Chicago Jayhawks who have played for Self while at Kansas include All-American Sherron Collins, Julian Wright, Mario Little and current forward Jamari Traylor.

“Cliff comes here from a long line of great ones from Chicago and has as much potential as anybody in the class,” Self said. “At 6-foot-8, he can play on the block and he can play behind the arc. He can play in between, but the biggest thing he can do is rebound the ball. He’ll remind our fans of a Thomas Robinson going after the ball rebounding.”

Alexander joins wing/forward Kelly Oubre on the fall 2013 signing class. Oubre, who signed his NLI with Kansas on Nov. 13, is ranked as the No. 10 overall player in the class of 2014.

“The combination of Cliff and Kelly Oubre gives us what we feel are two of the top players in our class and is a great momentum boost going forward this season knowing we’ll have some real good players waiting to get here next year,” Self said.

Alexander, who plays for the Mac Irvin Fire AAU program under coach Mike Irvin, chose Kansas over Memphis, Michigan State, Illinois and DePaul. He

Kansas Men’s Basketball Signees (as of 11.16.2013)
Cliff Alexander, F, 6-8, 240, Chicago, Ill. (Curie High School)
Kelly Oubre, W/F, 6-7, 200, Henderson, Nev. (Findlay Prep)