Wichita basketball recruit T.J. Williams to finish high school career at Sunrise
After helping lead Wichita Heights to a Class 6A state championship this spring, sophomore boys basketball star T.J. Williams announced Tuesday he will finish his high school career at Sunrise Christian Academy.
Williams has not been evaluated yet by a major recruiting service, but the 6-foot-5 guard is poised to become a highly rated prospect in the class of 2024. He received his first Division I scholarship offer from Wichita State last month, while Missouri and North Texas quickly followed.
The Wichita native is also playing with the U16 team for Run GMC, a premier grassroots program that competes on the Under Armour Next circuit.
Williams was one of the star players who helped lead Heights to a 23-2 record that culminated with a 61-54 victory over Blue Valley Northwest in the Kansas Class 6A state title game. He scored 13 points per game on 54% shooting with averages of 5.2 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.8 steals and 1.3 blocks playing on the No. 1-ranked defense to earn second team all-state honors in Class 6A.
It has become a recent trend for the top high school talent in the Wichita area to leave their KSHSAA schools to join Sunrise, which spent the majority of last season as the No. 1-ranked prep team in the country, plays one of the nation’s toughest schedules and routinely sends its players to high-major Division I programs.
Newton standout Ty Berry was the first, leaving Newton in 2019 to play his final year at Sunrise before eventually signing with Northwestern. But the most notable example was Gradey Dick, who left Collegiate in 2020 to finish his final two years at Sunrise and blossomed into a top-30 recruit who signed with Kansas and won the Gatorade National Player of the Year award this past season.
Sunrise, located in Bel Aire, is a five-minute drive from Wichita Heights.
This story was originally published May 17, 2022 at 2:27 PM.
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