TCU & current OKC Thunder player’s success story reveals recruiting ranking flaws

Kenrich Williams was a Pell Grant qualifier, and in his first season at TCU his head coach learned he wasn’t even bothering to pick up the check.

A Pell Grant is a federal loan that does not need to be repaid; they’re given to undergraduates who are working towards a degree and have “exceptional financial need.”

A sophomore forward on the men’s basketball team in 2014, Williams was not exactly awash in funds.

“At the time, that check would have been about $6,500 and it was just sitting there,” former TCU basketball coach Trent Johnson said in a phone interview this week. “I called him and I said, ‘Are you going to get your check?’ He said, ‘I’m good. I have a place to stay, I’m eating, and I got a place to work on my game.’ He wasn’t worried about it.”

Today, Williams is 29, and he has made close to $30 million in his NBA career.

Of the many players who came and went through TCU when it was the worst/hardest job in major college basketball, no one had a greater impact than Kenrich Williams. For TCU to become a relevant program, it had to find this guy.

The guy that no one wanted, who developed into the player that everyone needed.

On Saturday, at halftime of TCU’s home game against Texas, his jersey will be retired by his alma mater.

Recruiting rankings and recruiting analysts serve a purpose, usually their own, but all of them should issue some sort of refund on the high school class of 2013.

The top five high school players, just in Texas, from the class of 2013 were Julius Randle, Andrew and Aaron Harrison, Keith Frazier and Jordan Mikey. Randle is an NBA star, while the rest never made it to the league, beyond a quick look, at best.

Keep going down the list and you’ll see name after name after name you might recognize; the “Ohhhh, I remember him. What’s he doing now?”

Probably overseas. More likely he’s just out of ball.

It’s the brutal world of basketball. Most just don’t make it beyond college.

Had things evolved a tad differently, Williams would have played at a Division II school. Because you can’t find him on any recruiting ranking list. It doesn’t look like he was scouted much, either.

He was just another young man playing low level college ball, kidding themselves about “making it.”

“The first time I saw him play was at a practice at his junior college,” Johnson said. “You gotta remember, juco is juco.”

The standard rule of thumb in basketball is if a player is at a juco, there’s a reason. Seldom is that reason good.

This would have been in the early winter of 2013, when Williams was a freshman at New Mexico Junior College in Hobbs, N.M, population 40,000; it’s five miles from the Texas border, and right in the middle of You Don’t Want To Be Here.

“All of these guys are running their mouths; there were three guys who did all of the scoring, and this one guy who all he did was play hard,” Johnson said. “What stuck out to me was when he had something to say, everyone else shut up. I told my staff, ‘I may be wrong on this one, but I think this guy is going to be a player.’

“He had more impact on winning than scoring. Screens. Rebounds. Passing. I am not going to say I found him, because everywhere he’s been he’s been the ultimate teammate, even though he didn’t score the ball.”

Johnson is too humble to admit he found him, but he found him.

“Do you know where Kenrich is from?” Johnson asked. “He’s from the middle of nowhere.”

Before Williams enjoyed his year in the tourist trap of Hobbs, he grew in Waco and attended Waco University. Not exactly Manhattan.

Had Johnson not offered Williams the chance to play at TCU, Williams was headed to Tarleton State, at the time a Division II program.

Current TCU coach Jamie Dixon eventually inherited Williams, who just continued to develop. From the kid that no one knew to the man the NBA wanted.

Undrafted after his senior year in 2018, he turned a tryout with the New Orleans Pelicans into a contract as a rookie. After two years there, he was traded to Oklahoma City where he is currently under contract through 2025-’26, with a club option for an additional season.

As a player off the bench, he doesn’t have the type of statistics that stop you. The Thunder have the second-best record in the NBA’s Western Conference, and Williams is on the team for a reason.

He never had a star behind his name, because he didn’t need one.

He just needed food, and a place to work on his game.