Tyran Stokes and the Kansas Jayhawks made one of the biggest headlines of the year when Bill Self officially landed the No. 1 recruit in the country for a second consecutive year.
Stokes, choosing Kansas over Mark Pope and Kentucky during the infamous “Inside the NBA” clip, finally matched up against the Wildcats on Tuesday in the State Farm Champions Classic.
Tre White scored a career-high 30 points and Stokes added 23 to fire, as Kentucky stumbled over 15 different turnovers en route to their first loss of the regular season. A clip of Stokes smiling after shaking Pope’s hand in the postgame line quickly caught traction online; A Reddit post later shared this photo of a stoic Pope essentially averting eye contact with his highly sought recruit.
Pope and Kentucky worked extremely hard to land Stokes over Self and Kansas.
Stokes, shortly after the game ended, talked about meeting Kentucky in March while greeting out-of-frame fans in a video shared by Braiden Turner.
Losing out on their home-state recruit, Kentucky finished Tuesday night 27 of 59 from the floor and just 4 of 21 beyond the arc; Zoom Diallo led the Wildcats with 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting. They’ll host Northern Arizona on Friday, Nov. 13, in search of a third win to begin the season.
Kansas, meanwhile, seeks to defend its 3-0 start next Tuesday, Nov. 17, when it takes on UNLV in the opening round of the Players Era Festival in Las Vegas.
