As reported earlier today at K-StateOnline, Goodnews Kpegeol has joined the Kansas State basketball program.

Kansas State head coach Bruce Weber announced on Monday (December 31) that recent signee Goodnews Kpegeol (St. Paul, Minn./North/TaylorMade Prep) has joined the men's basketball team and will fill the 13th and final scholarship for the reminder of the 2018-19 season.

An NCAA qualifier prior to enrolling at TaylorMade Academy in Pensacola, Florida for the 2018-19 season, Kpegeol is immediately eligible after enrolling at K-State for the spring semester and has been cleared to play by the NCAA. He is expected to redshirt the reminder of the season. He participated in his first practice on Monday.

"We are excited to add Goodnews to program," said Weber. "It was a tough decision for him and his family to leave TaylorMade at semester because Coach (Anthony) Taylor had given him an opportunity. However, he and his family felt it was in his best interests to join the program now and start the process of getting acclimated to college. Right now, there are no plans for him to play this season. It would be a chance to be in practice, to start learning the system and get adjusted to college in order to be ready to go next season (2019-20)."

A 6-foot-6, 180-pound guard from St. Paul, Minnesota, Kpegeol spent the first half of the 2018-19 season as a postgraduate at TaylorMade Academy after finishing his four-year prep career at North High School in St. Paul, Minnesota. As of Nov. 4, he was averaging 15.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.2 steals per game while connecting on 36 percent from 3-point range for TaylorMade.

Kpegeol led North High School to the Class 4A State Tournament for the first time in 17 years as a sophomore in 2015-16 before helping the Polars to 22-5 record with a 15-1 mark in conference play as a senior in 2017-18. He averaged a team-best 18.2 points in 19 games played as a senior, which included nine 20-point games and a season-high 29 points against Stillwater on Dec. 7, 2017.

Kpegeol was one of four players who signed with K-State on the first day of the Fall National Signing Period on Nov. 15, along with Antonio Gordon (Lawton, Okla./Eisenhower), DaJuan Gordon (Chicago, Ill./Curie Metropolitan) and Montavious Murphy (Houston, Texas/Concordia Lutheran).

The four-man recruiting class is a consensus Top 40 class nationally by a number of services, including No. 39 by Rivals.com and No. 40 by 247Sports.com. The Gordons (not related) and Murphy are all off to impressive starts to their senior seasons.

DaJuan Gordon has Curie Metropolitan off a perfect 10-0 record and a No. 1 ranking in the Chicago area, while Antonio Gordon recently broke the Eisenhower High School scoring record with a 45-point effort on Dec. 15 that also included 10 rebounds, 7 steals and 4 assists. Murphy recently recorded a 31-point, 14-rebound performance on Dec. 21.