NEW ORLEANS — Much has changed for Kansas super-senior Mitch Lightfoot since he first suited up for Ironwood Ridge High School.
“I was wide-eyed just being able to play varsity basketball,” Lightfoot said Sunday ahead of Kansas’ national championship game with North Carolina. “Now, it’s kind of a different stage.”
A different stage — and a different Lightfoot. The former Oro Valley resident has matured from the confidence that comes with age and experience. In college basketball terms, the KU forward has plenty of both.
Lightfoot is part of the game’s unofficial COVID-19 class, the crop of athletes offered extended eligibility in the wake of the pandemic-impacted 2019-20 season.
Few basketball programs felt that impact quite as profoundly as KU. The Jayhawks were 28-3 and riding a 16-game winning streak when the pandemic hit in March 2020. Kansas was set to open the Big 12 Conference Tournament and perhaps put the finishing touches on a No. 1 overall seed when the canceled Oklahoma City-Utah NBA game signaled the end of sports for the foreseeable future.
At the time, Lightfoot had established himself as a reliable defensive presence off the bench. His play filling in for an injured Udoka Azubuike at the Big 12 Tournament helped the 2017-18 Jayhawks begin a postseason run that culminated in a Final Four appearance.
The abrupt end to a promising 2020 season marked an unceremonious close for a team with the foundation for another Final Four push.
“We were playing so well defensively,” Lightfoot said. “We had the best defensive guard and the best defensive big in the nation with Marcus Garrett and Udoka … Just so many pieces that team had.”
Kansas forward Mitch Lightfoot warms up during practice for the Jayhawks’ Final Four game against Villanova. KU will play North Carolina on Monday night for the national championship.
Lightfoot opted to redshirt before that season, ensuring his return for 2020-21. But without the extra year of eligibility, a blowout loss to USC in last season’s NCAA Tournament could have closed the 2015-16 Arizona High School Player of the Year’s college career. Lightfoot played his first two high school seasons at I-Ridge, and was named first-team All-Southern Arizona by the Star in 2014. Lightfoot then transferred to Gilbert Christian, where he played his final two seasons. He chose Kansas over scholarship offers from Arizona and others.
“It’s great,” Jayhawks coach Bill Self said of the extended eligibility policy. “There were more solid and good teams late in the season than there was a year prior. We have a sixth-year senior, a seventh-year senior (Jalen Coleman-Lands). And even though it will never be like that again probably, having those kids go out in a way that every other class has been able to go out I think has been great for all of them.”
Having level of experience on the roster renders fourth-year seniors Ochai Agbaji and David McCormack, the latter who Lightfoot primarily spells, veritable young bucks in comparison.
“We’ve been around the block,” Lightfoot said. “We came into (Saturday) night’s game (KU’s 81-65 semifinal win over Villanova) and this game thinking, ‘Hey, we’ve got a job to do.’
“That’s something that being old allows you to do,” he added.
Lightfoot is not the only Jayhawk super-senior with a Grand Canyon State background. Former Arizona State guard and three-time All-Pac-12 Conference honoree Remy Martin utilized both the additional season of eligibility and the NCAA transfer portal to join the Jayhawks last offseason.
Martin said Lightfoot has been a resource throughout the one-time Sun Devils’ tenure in Lawrence, Kansas.
“Being West Coast people and knowing mutual friends, and knowing about each other, he was one of the first guys I’d talk to and lean on,” Martin said.
From a “wide-eyed” freshman just happy to make the Ironwood Ridge varsity team to a leader on a team one win shy of a national title, Lightfoot has undergone quite the evolution.
The journey reinforces the message a present-day Lightfoot said he would offer to that high school version of himself.
“A lot of freshmen going into college basketball can take that to heart,” he said. “College basketball is no easy feat. Playing at a high level like this one is pretty special, but you’re going to have to put in the work and it’s going to be worth it.”
