Jayhawk Invitational will offer KU recruits a stage

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Royce Woolridge, a junior who averaged 28.5 points last season, says he will play at Kansas.

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For a true Kansas basketball junkie, it doesn’t get much better than what’s being offered tonight at the Jayhawk Invitational Tournament in Lawrence.

KU commit Royce Woolridge’s AAU team, the Arizona Magic, will take on KU recruit Harrison Barnes’ team, All Iowa Attack Red, at 7:10 p.m. at Haskell University’s Coffin Complex. Woolridge became the youngest known pledge to Kansas when he made an oral commitment last spring as a sophomore, and KU coach Bill Self can only hope that Barnes will eventually join Woolridge in the Jayhawks’ 2010 recruiting class.

Woolridge, a shooting guard from Phoenix, is glad he won’t have to wait until October 2010 to make his Lawrence debut.

“I can’t wait,” Woolridge said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Woolridge, the son of former NBA forward Orlando Woolridge, is coming off a junior season in which he scored 28.5 points per game and led Sunnyslope High to the Arizona Class 4A-1 state championship. Still, even with his superb high school performance and his commitment to Kansas, Woolridge is rated No. 88 overall by Rivals.com. He intends to change that this summer with an injury-free AAU circuit. (He missed a good chunk of last year’s competition.)

“It’s a really big summer,” said the 6-foot-3 Woolridge. “I want to get a lot higher than what I am.”

Woolridge knows that playing against Barnes, a 6-6 small forward rated the No. 4 overall player in the class, will provide him with a stage to show what he can do.

“This is definitely an opportunity,” Woolridge said.

Barnes, a native of Ames, Iowa, is one of KU’s top targets in the class. Barnes is being recruited by many schools, notably fellow blue-bloods North Carolina, Duke, Kentucky and UCLA.

Woolridge will have at least two more games on Saturday — at Lawrence High at 8 a.m. and 12:40 p.m.

A KU target for the class of 2011, guard Bradley Beal, will be playing with the St. Louis Eagles 16-under team. Beal is also considering Missouri.

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