AJ Storr was brought in as the headlining addition to a monster transfer class that had Kansas ranked as the preseason number one team in the country. Storr and the Jayhawks struggled with consistency throughout the season, but Wednesday’s performance against UCF showed flashes of why Storr was so highly thought of in the transfer portal.

The Wisconsin transfer turned in a season-high 19 points in a 98-94 win in overtime. He was efficient on 7/11 shooting, including three threes—the most Storr has made this season and just the fourth time he’s made more than one.

Storr made an instant impact after checking in at the 14:05 mark in the first half. He drove to the rim for a pair of layups before dropping off an assist to Hunter Dickinson.

“I just started off attacking the basket,” Storr said in the locker room postgame. “It just makes the game easier for me. The rim looked wider, I feel more confident when I start off attacking.”

The shot began to fall, with Storr hitting consecutive threes as the game drew close. He made impacts in overtime, converting a transition layup and hitting two clutch free throws before fouling out. Storr played a majority of the minutes in crunch time with the starters before picking up his fifth foul.

“I had a pretty good game so I think he [Self] was just rolling with the flow,” Storr said.

Storr is no stranger to big conference tournament performances. He put himself on the map last season, averaging 22.5 points per game over Wisconsin’s Big Ten Tournament run– including a 30 piece over Northwestern and 20 in a win over top-seeded Purdue.

“It’s great to see him get going at this point in the season,” Zeke Mayo said. “March is going to be huge. I’ve read a couple things where people have predicted [that] this is his month, so it’s a great start for him. We’re going to continue to encourage him to keep going.”

Kansas needed every point it got tonight, as UCF took the Jayhawks down to the wire and made scoring look easy. In a pretty even statistical game across the board, bench points were an outlier– the Jayhawks tallying 30 on the back of Storr’s 19 compared to UCF’s 13.

“He was one of the better players in the game without question,” Self said. “We needed his offense without question, so he was big for us tonight. We don't win the game without him.”

Self built this team’s roster on depth after injuries and scholarship limits severely limited Kansas from reaching its ceiling in the 2023-24 season. Kansas brought in six transfers to supplement the returns of Hunter Dickinson, KJ Adams, and Dajuan Harris. However, some players haven’t lived up to expectations, or the pieces haven’t clicked all the way.

Kansas ranks near the middle of the pack, 159th in the country in bench points, with 20.8 points per game coming from non-starters. The Jayhawks have seen flashes of production from their bench, primarily from Diggy Coit, who’s scored in double figures in three of his last seven outings.

“For AJ, we need him to be aggressive,” Coit said. “We need him to be a dog every day. As long as he’s aggressive and he’s a dog, we could deal with the mistakes because we know more times than not, it’s gonna positive than negative.”