The Kansas women’s basketball program, which opened its 2025-26 season with a 74-64 win over Kansas City on Wednesday night, is facing an even bigger weekend ahead.
Brandon Schneider’s Jayhawks will be hosting top-rated prospect Addison Bjorn, a 6-foot-1, do-everything guard from Park Hill South for her seventh and final official visit before the arrival of next week’s early signing period.
“I don’t know exactly how many times I’ve been to (KU’s) campus, but it started when I was a little girl and there’s always that special feeling in Allen Fieldhouse.”
— KU target Addison Bjorn on her familiarity with Kansas basketball
In a phone interview with R1S1 Sports earlier this week, Bjorn said she’s not sure if she’ll have a decision made in time for next week’s signing period but noted that she hopes to know where her future lies by the end of the month.
Bjorn, a 5-star recruit, is ranked as the No. 9 prospect in the Class of 2026 by 247 Sports and sits No. 13 on ESPN.com’s list.
She’ll head to Lawrence this weekend with nearly 50 offers to play college basketball and on the heels of official visits to some of the biggest programs in the country. She checked out UConn, Iowa, Notre Dame, Duke, North Carolina and Texas.
“My recruiting process started in about 7th grade and, to be honest, I didn’t really even understand it then,” Bjorn told R1S1 Sports, noting that KU was one of the programs that was there in the beginning. “But I’ve enjoyed it. I really like building relationships with people and it’s been a great ride. I’m grateful for the opportunities, and sometimes it’s still pretty surreal. I feel like whatever’s meant to be is going to happen.”
She said her dad, Darren, planned her visits and that there was no rhyme or reason to Kansas being at the end.
Truth be told, in many ways, Kansas was always at the beginning. She said she could not count the number of KU games — men’s and women’s — that she has attended at Allen Fieldhouse during the years and already feels a strong bond with several KU players and coaches.
She played in the same AAU program as current KU freshman Libby Fandel with All Iowa Attack. She went to countless camps with freshman Keeley Parks, who hails from Norman, Oklahoma, and competed against Kansas City-area freshman Jaliya Davis. And she was teammates with current KU sophomore Regan Williams at Park Hill South.
“I know a lot of the players, just from camps, AAU,” Bjorn said. “I played AAU with Libby, went to a lot of camps with Keeley, played against Jaliya. There’s just a lot of connections there. On the coaching side, they’ve all been there since Day 1. They’ve recruited me since 7th grade, so I’ve built that relationship with them and I’m very comfortable with them and know what I’m going to get.”
And then there’s KU junior S’Mya Nichols, a KC-product herself who, not long ago, was in the same position that Bjorn finds herself today, with the women’s college basketball world at her fingertips and the chance to go anywhere and play for just about anybody.
Nichols, of course, picked KU, in large part because she liked the idea of staying close to home and also because she wanted to be a part of elevating the KU women’s hoops program to national relevance.
Nichols’ goal when she signed as one of the top-rated prospects in the Class of 2023 was to one day play for a national championship. And Bjorn has very similar goals for her college career.
When they landed Nichols, the KU coaching staff hoped and believed that other talented players from around the country, but especially from the area, would see that and want to follow her path to Kansas. And there is plenty of evidence of that being the case on the current roster, in particular with the 2025-26 freshman class, which, on paper, was one of the best signing classes in KU women's basketball history.
Two years after Nichols signed, the Jayhawks landed Davis, one of the top-rated players in the 2025 class who hailed from nearby Blue Valley North.
Landing Davis, a starter this season as a freshman, created a trend of KU landing some of the top talent from Kansas City, and the Kansas coaches have been eyeing making Bjorn the next player on that list for the past five years.
“They’ve recruited me since 7th grade, so I’ve built that relationship with them and I’m very comfortable with them and know what I’m going to get.”
— Kansas target Addison Bjorn on her upcoming visit to KU
The Park Hill South star said those signings and KU’s commitment to recruiting top talent in the area have caught her attention, in large part because of what she calls “The Hometown Hero Effect.”
It really popped with All Iowa Attack alum Caitlin Clark, the current WNBA star who broke the women’s college basketball scoring record during her playing days at Iowa. Clark grew up in Iowa City and helped change the way women’s basketball was watched and experienced by people in her hometown and across the country.
Neither Nichols nor Davis nor Bjorn grew up in Lawrence, but having KU’s campus sit just 30-40 minutes away from home is something that stood out to all three of them and continues to be a factor in Bjorn’s recruitment.
“With the way the women’s game is growing in general, it’s been very nice to have a lot of talented young players around the area,” she said. “I think it’s all pretty crazy. You kind of saw it with Caitlin Clark, the hometown hero effect, and I feel like a lot of people know who S’Mya is and she’s created that for herself, with the success she’s had at Kansas. So, honestly, it’s just good to see that. The love and support from the area is very special considering it’s home.”
Bjorn’s game was shaped, in part, by spending her early days competing with her twin brother Carson on boys teams. Her dad coached them and she said she played with the boys for as long as they would allow it.
“It kind of just happened naturally,” she said. “They asked me to play in a tournament and then I realized the competition was better. They were bigger, faster, stronger and I liked the feeling of being uncomfortable and being the only girl. You got the eyes, the stares, the doubts and I kind of like to prove people wrong and shock everyone.”
Once she made the move to playing full-time with all-girls squads, she quickly stood out and has ever since.
Her journey has included some of the biggest opportunities and honors one could imagine.
KU target Addison Bjorn (4) is shown here during international competition with USA Basketball. Bjorn is taking her official visit to Kansas this weekend. [USA Basketball photo via Kansas Athletics]
She has represented her country on USA Basketball youth teams three different times, winning gold medals at the 2024 U17 World Cup and the 2025 U19 World Cup.
She also was the 2025 co-winner of the DiRenna Award, given annually to the top player in the Kansas City area. She shared that honor with Davis. And she also was the 2024-25 Missouri Gatorade Player of the Year and 2024-25 Missouri MaxPreps Player of the Year.
In addition, earlier this year she received the Children’s Mercy Kansas City Rising Star Award at the 2025 WIN for KC Women’s Sports Awards.
Last season, as a junior, she averaged 21.9 points, 11.6 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 3.3 steals per game in leading Park Hill South to a 28-1 record and trip to the state title game. As a sophomore, she had similar numbers, averaging 18.7 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.5 steals per game. That, after averaging 18.4 points per game as a freshman.
Asked to provide a summary of her game for those who haven’t seen her play, Bjorn painted the picture of the relentless do-everything type of player that people have described her to be.
This summer, while playing EYBL basketball with the All Iowa Attack, Bjorn was ranked by Synergy Basketball as the most efficient scorer in the entire circuit over data from at least eight games.
“I can play 1 through 4, I’m very versatile and I do whatever it takes to win,” she said. “I’m just a player that wants to make everyone on the court better and get everyone involved. Just a winner. Straight winner.”
Off the court, she leans on her friends to help soften the edge of the tenacious competitor she becomes when she’s on a basketball floor, and she said they’ve been a huge part of helping her keep the craziness of recruiting from being too much.
“There’s a decent amount of attention on my recruitment right now just considering that time is ticking,” she said. “But I don’t think the attention gets to me. I have friends I hang out with a lot, I’m a normal kid and I try to balance it that way.”
As for her visit this weekend, Bjorn comes to KU with a deeper knowledge of most things about the program, campus and facilities than she had going into her other visits, but she plans to treat this one like the others that came before it.
“I don’t know exactly how many times I’ve been to (KU’s) campus, but it started when I was a little girl and there’s always that special feeling in Allen Fieldhouse,” she said. “I’m just really looking forward to spending a lot of time with the girls, because I think getting to know them more is going to be great because, at the end of the day, that’s who I’m going to be spending a lot of my time with. So, I’m looking forward to hanging out with them, getting a refresh of campus and just feeling how the culture feels there and continuing to learn about the program. There’s always something more you can learn about somewhere, so I just want to continue to do that, take it in and see what Kansas has.”
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