He’s a former quarterback, but it’s KU basketball that’s showing interest: recruiting
Coaches from Kansas, Arkansas and Mississippi State traveled to Combine Academy in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on Wednesday to view a men’s basketball workout of Rakease Passmore, a 6-foot-5, 180-pound senior guard originally from Palatka, Florida.
According to 247Sports.com, Passmore visited Mississippi State last weekend. He will visit Oklahoma this weekend, LSU on Sept. 22-24 and Arkansas on Oct. 6-8. He’s already visited Indiana, Oregon and Wake Forest. He has not yet set a date for a visit to KU.
Passmore is ranked No. 36 in the recruiting class of 2024 by Rivals.com, No. 48 by 247Sports.com and No. 52 by ESPN.com.
He also has heard from coaches from Missouri, Miami, North Carolina State, Tennessee, Georgia Tech, USC, Virginia, Iowa, Creighton, Houston and others.
“When Rakease Passmore gets out in transition, fire your phone up, he is likely to have his head up around rim level on the finish,” wrote On3.com’s Jamie Shaw. “Passmore has a lot of straight-line lift and he likes to show that off when he gets on the break.
“This summer, with Team Thad on Nike’s EYBL Circuit he was able to show an expanded game and that he is more than just a dunker,” Shaw added of Passmore, who averaged 14.0 points a game on the AAU circuit.
Passmore played quarterback in football as a youth in Florida until suffering a concussion in eighth grade. At that point he took up basketball.
“She was done with football,” Passmore told SI.com, referring to his mom. “She wanted me to focus on basketball, and, man, I was mad at first. I’ll be honest, I used to say basketball was for softies. It turned out to be the best decision I ever made.
“I always played, but not organized,” Passmore added of basketball. “I always had guys in the community that played ball and I’d just be around dribbling and stuff like that. It was mostly a timing thing, but things started to click after a while.”
He played at A.C. Reynolds High School in Asheville before transferring to Combine for the 2022-23 season.
“For me, I just appreciate all the schools reaching out. It wasn’t that long ago that I wasn’t even thinking about basketball; now all of these top coaches are calling all the time,” he told SI.com. “It makes me think about how much further I can take this. That’s what I’m motivated by.”
So far Kansas has a commitment from one player in the recruiting class of 2024. Flory Bidunga, a 6-9, 220-pound forward from Kokomo (Indiana) High School, committed to KU on Aug. 12. He chose Kansas over Auburn, Duke and Michigan. He’s ranked No. 4 in the class by ESPN.com and No. 5 by Rivals.com and 247Sports.com.
