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RJ Hampton to skip college, play professionally in New Zealand

College basketball recruiting is like a circus.

It’s a fun show, a lot of things that do not make sense, and an occasional surprise that most do not see coming. The big surprise for the 2019 recruiting cycle came Tuesday morning when news broke that top recruit RJ Hampton would forego college to play professional basketball in New Zealand.

RJ Hampton was the top combo card in the 2020 class before reclassifying to 2019 earlier this spring. He is now ranked as the No. 5 overall player in his new class.

Hampton could have chosen any school that he wanted, but by mid-May the list had been narrowed down to Kansas and Memphis.