Former Mississippi State guard Shakeel Moore officially signs with Kansas basketball

Former Mississippi State guard Shakeel “Shak” Moore, who entered the NCAA men’s basketball transfer portal on April 3 and announced his commitment to Kansas last Wednesday, has signed a financial-aid agreement with KU and will play for the Jayhawks during the 2024-25 season, KU coach Bill Self announced Tuesday.

Moore, a 6-foot-1, 190-pound fifth-year senior from Greensboro, North Carolina, played three seasons at Mississippi State after starting his college career at North Carolina State in 2020-21. He has played in 124 games during his college career.

“Shakeel is a combo guard who can play on and off the ball,” Self said Tuesday. “He’s a terrific athlete and we feel like he will be a nice complement to the personnel already on the roster. His experience and maturity should allow him to be a good fit here. He’s a tremendous young man that will graduate from Mississippi State this summer.”

Moore, who started 22 games, averaged 7.9 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists in 33 games at Mississippi State a year ago. He shot 46.8% percent from the floor, including 36.3% from 3. Moore scored in double figures in 13 games, including a season-high 16 points against Murray State on Dec. 13, 2023.

During his junior season, Moore was named to the 2022-23 Naismith Defensive Player of the Year Watch List made up of 15 players nationally. He averaged 9.8 points and 2.3 assists his junior year at Mississippi State.

Moore averaged 8.8 points and started 29 of 34 games played his sophomore year at Mississippi State. He averaged 6.8 points in his lone season at N.C. State in 2020-21. For his career, Moore has scored 1,042 points with 336 rebounds, 250 assists and 170 steals.

He was 4-of-4 from 3 good for 14 points on Feb. 10 against Missouri.

“He’s a pest on defense,” Mississippi State coach Chris Jans told the SEC Network, as reported by Cdispatch.com. “He gets his hands on a lot of balls.”

During his senior campaign, Moore — who announced his transfer to KU just a few hours after KU revealed Elmarko Jackson would miss the entire 2024-25 season because of a knee injury — had multiple steals in eight games, third-best on the team. He finished the season with 28 steals, fifth-best on the squad that held opponents to 69.1 ppg.

He had multiple steals in 41 of 99 career games with the Bulldogs.

Of Moore’s offense, Jans told the SEC Network late in his junior year: “I tell him to shoot that thing, man. Shak’s got a killer shot fake. It’s like you got a toy at Christmas and it’s worn out by the New Year. He just uses it over and over, and it’s a really good one, but we need him to score for us, obviously. He’s gotten a lot more confident recently.”

Moore heard from KU, Seton Hall, West Virginia, Wake Forest and others in recruiting.

“He’s just grown up as a man,” Mississippi State teammate Cameron Matthews said of his Moore at last year’s SEC Media Days prior to the start of the season, as reported by hailstate.com. “He’s become more mature about how he handles things.”

Jans said at that time: “There’s a reason he’s here representing us at Media Days. There’s a reason we chose him to represent our program and our university.”

Moore played high school basketball at Piedmont Classical High School in Browns Summit, North Carolina, for three seasons, followed by Moravian Prep in Hickory, North Carolina, for his senior year. While at Piedmont Classical, Moore was part of three-consecutive state championship teams in 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2018-19.

KU has 12 scholarship players on the 2024-25 roster, one under the NCAA’s limit of 13. KU, if it stays at 12, will complete a self-imposed penalty that stripped KU of three scholarships over a three-year period.