Reached via text message on Sunday night in Lawrence, Kansas basketball coach Bill Self told the Journal-World, not so surprisingly, that there was no new news on [the status of withheld freshmen Billy Preston and Silvio De Sousa.][1]
Self did, however, provide the most specific and clear timeline to date for that to change.
“We should know a lot more tomorrow afternoon on both,” Self told the Journal-World.
If the Kansas basketball program does, in fact, learn of some kind of resolution on the future status of De Sousa and/or Preston sometime Monday afternoon — good news or bad — it would mark the end of a long and drawn-out waiting period that dates back weeks and has left the players, KU’s coaching staff and, of course, the KU fan base experiencing varying levels of frustration.
Preston’s situation dates back to the night of KU’s second game of the season, when he learned, just a few hours before tip-off against Kentucky in the Champions Classic in Chicago, that he would be held out of the game while the university looked into details of a vehicle he was driving during a single-car, non-injury accident a few days earlier.
[Self said that night][2] after the win over the Wildcats that KU officials had “spent all day trying to figure out if there was a way we could get it done where he could play” against Kentucky, adding, “I am confident it’ll get cleared up. But I don’t know the time frame and they haven’t clued me in.”
That obviously did not happen and Preston has not played in any of KU’s 13 games in the nearly eight weeks since.
Almost no one could have foreseen that type of delay when the issue first surfaced.
As for De Sousa, his case actually has been in limbo a few days longer, though many of the steps needed to reach the point of awaiting NCAA approval were up to him.
After graduating from IMG Academy and receiving a qualifying score on his final ACT attempt, De Sousa was cleared to join the Jayhawks in time for the second semester in late December.
The 6-foot-9, 245-pound Angola native now is simply waiting for the NCAA to certify his amateur status, [something Self said has taken a little more time because De Sousa is from a foreign country.][3]
Even still, waiting for that issue to be addressed is now nearing the end of its second full week of waiting.
Stay tuned to KUsports.com throughout the day Monday for updates on both situations.
[1]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2018/jan/07/now-situation-remains-same-ku-freshmen-de-sousa-pr/
[2]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2017/nov/15/ku-coach-bill-self-confident-freshman-forward-bill/
[3]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2018/jan/04/self-de-sousas-amateur-status-more-difficult-verif/?mens_basketball
