K-State basketball adds freshman guard Goodnews Kpegeol a semester early
The Kansas State basketball team will have an extra player on its roster when the Big 12 portion of its schedule begins against Texas on Wednesday at Bramlage Coliseum.
Goodnews Kpegeol, a freshman shooting guard with one of the most unique names in the sport, has joined the team a semester early.
Kpegeol is a 6-foot-6, 180-pound guard who signed with the Wildcats in November while playing for TaylorMade Academy, a prep school in Pensacola, Fla. As a member of K-State’s 2019 recruiting class, he wasn’t expected to arrive on campus until the summer. But he opted to enroll now.
The NCAA has cleared him to play and he has already practiced with the team, but the plan is for him to spend the remainder of this season on the sideline with a redshirt.
“We are excited to add Goodnews to (the) program,” K-State basketball coach Bruce Weber said in a statement. “It was a tough decision for him and his family to leave TaylorMade at semester because Coach (Anthony) Taylor had given him an opportunity. However, he and his family felt it was in his best interests to join the program now and start the process of getting acclimated to college.
“Right now, there are no plans for him to play this season. It would be a chance to be in practice, to start learning the system and get adjusted to college in order to be ready to go next season.”
Kpegeol is from St. Paul, Minn. He enrolled at TaylorMade to enhance his college basketball opportunities after graduating from high school and ended up choosing K-State over Akron, Georgia State and Saint Louis.
He was averaging 15.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.2 steals per game while shooting 36 percent from three-point range for TaylorMade.
With his addition, K-State now has a full roster of 13 scholarship players.
Kpegeol was one of four players who signed with K-State in November. The others are forward Antonio Gordon, guard DaJuan Gordon and forward Montavious Murphy. They will join the Wildcats as originally scheduled.