Like Xavier Henry before him, KU freshman Josh Jackson joining talented, experienced Kansas roster

By Matt Tait     Sep 28, 2016

Nick Krug
Kansas freshman Josh Jackson, left, and former Jayhawk Xavier Henry, right, joined the Kansas basketball program under very similar situations during their time in Lawrence.

Former Kansas guard Tyrel Reed remembers the first time he met Xavier Henry. And, as it turned out, the whole experience was rather uneventful.

Henry, the No. 8-ranked player in the Class of 2009, according to Rivals.com, was joining a KU team that had just finished a 27-win season with a loss in the Sweet 16 and was expected to enter the 2009-10 season as the top-ranked team in the country.

Loaded with veteran talent and terrific team chemistry, the Jayhawks did not exactly need to add much to their arsenal to be considered a contender.

“It wasn’t broken,” Reed recalled. “We were pretty good and we would’ve done OK without bringing anyone in.”

Didn’t matter. Henry joined the Jayhawks in August and went on to become a key member of a team that went 33-3 and wound up as the No. 1 overall seed in the 2010 NCAA Tournament.

2009-10 — With Sherron Collins (15.5 ppg) and Cole Aldrich (11.3 ppg) back to lead the team one more time, Kansas roared to a monster regular season, losing just twice — at Tennessee and at Oklahoma State — en route to a No. 1 seed in the Midwest regional. Freshman starter Xavier Henry (13.4 ppg) added firepower to KU’s lineup and the Jayhawks rolled into the tournament as the No. 1 overall seed. But KU ran into a tough Northern Iowa team in Oklahoma City and a monster shot by a man named Ali Farokhmanesh was the final dagger in UNI’s upset over the Jayhawks, who finished the season 33-3.

The current crop of Jayhawks is going through something eerily similar with freshman Josh Jackson. The names, numbers and faces may be different, but there’s a certain amount of symmetry between the two teams.

Both Henry and Jackson came to Kansas with a tremendous amount of talent, loads of hype and a great deal of potential. According to those familiar with the process, making the pieces fit was as much about the mental side of things as it is about basketball.

“It is what you make it,” said Reed, a junior on that 2009-10 team, who also watched his squad welcome one-and-done player Josh Selby a year later. “Coach Self always reminds us that we play at Kansas and he’s always gonna go after the best players in the country. I think making that work depends on the current group but also a lot on the type of kid coming in, and X was a great kid who wanted best for team first and foremost.”

By all accounts, that same thing can be and has been said about Jackson, who spent most of the summer in Lawrence getting familiar with his future teammates.

Self celebrated Jackson’s maturity and “polish” throughout the summer and said those traits have made it easy to blend the 6-foot-8 Detroit forward whom many are expecting to make a major impact this season into KU’s already talented and experienced squad.

Nick Krug
Blue Team guard Josh Jackson looks to strip the ball from Red Team guard Devonte' Graham on Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at the Horejsi Athletic Center.

“I don’t think I need to address it with the older guys,” Self told the Journal-World. “But I do need to address it with Josh and I have. But he can educate me as much as I can educate him. He gets it. He sees big picture and all he cares about is winning.”

That last part — setting aside stats and stardom for the bottom line — is crucial in the process, according to both Reed and Self. The ability of the freshman phenom to do just that will help ease him into the mix and inspire others to welcome him with open arms.

“Those older guys, what they do recognize is talent,” Self said. “They want to win and they know that Josh makes us better and gives us a better chance to win if he plays well. That’s the key though — if he plays well.”

That was not a problem for Henry back in 2009-10, though many have wondered if he would have exploded more had he not been tossed onto such an experienced roster.

In 36 starts during his lone season as a Jayhawk, Henry finished as the team’s second leading scorer (13.4 ppg) and shot .418 from three-point range while adding 4.4 rebounds per game.

Reed said Henry never acted like he was better than anyone and that went a long way toward keeping the disruptions to a minimum.

“I don’t think it really messed with our psyche. We took it in stride,” Reed said. “The biggest thing is we had Sherron (Collins) and now they’ve got Frank (Mason) and Devonte’ (Graham). If the upperclassmen and the core of the team are setting the example from Day 1 of what Kansas basketball is, those young guys have no choice but to follow them, otherwise they’re not gonna fit in. And that’s the most important thing for a freshman, blend in and do everything you can to help the team.”

Reed said he and his teammates were aware of the hype surrounding Henry but never paid it much attention. For one, talent ran deep on the KU roster. For two, less talented or not, the veteran players on the roster had the head-start of knowing what it took to play for Self and succeed at the college level.

“We see the press clippings and we hear it all and we know it,” Reed said. “But Xavier never gave off a vibe that he was just here for a year and out. For me, I just wanted to compete. I didn’t care who it was. It could’ve been LeBron James coming in and as long as I got a chance to compete against him, I was gonna be fine with whatever happened.”

That’s the set-up Self is expecting this year, when the 2016-17 season officially kicks off with Late Night in the Phog on Saturday.

“Whatever fanfare comes with those types of guys, they can quickly win the respect of their teammates by outworking them and Josh has already done that,” Self said. “Josh will make those other guys better because he’ll compete with ’em. And I know for sure that nobody’s going to back down from him. I know Lagerald (Vick) and Svi (Mykhailiuk) won’t. They’re gonna push him and I think that’ll be good for him and good for us.

“The thing that Josh understands is that high school doesn’t mean anything now,” Self added. “And a lot of high school guys don’t understand that. I’m expecting him to fit in nicely but also impose his will. That’s harder to do as freshman, but this team needs that alpha dog. And I think it’s a good blend because we’ve got veterans who know how to handle it and we’ve got a young guy who gets it.”

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.