Lincoln Minor isn’t by any means foul-mouthed, but he couldn’t help referring to a school with a four-letter name.
Minor, you see, has hopes to be half of a great backcourt duo such as one hailed from that school in North Carolina.
“At Duke they had Amaker and Dawkins,” Minor said. “Those are probably curse words here, but that’s the type of thing that’s great. Certain players have kind of a telepathy. They know what the other is going to do before they do it.”
Minor, a 6-3 transfer from Midland, Tex., Juco, said he can envision himself and fellow transfer Otis Livingston becoming such a matched set.
“I like playing with Otis a lot,” Minor said, “but it’s not the type of thing you can predict. It might happen between a guard and a forward, but that’s kind of unusual. The quicker we can adhere, the better.”
KU coach Larry Brown indicated during his tell-all session with the Lawrence Cosmos in October that Minor needed first to adhere to a more conservative playing style.
“He has unbelievable talent,” Brown said. “He’s going to be a test. We’ve got to get him to understand. You remember how you felt when you saw Cedric (Hunter) on the free throw line? When you see this guy with the ball you’ll feel the same way.”
Brown’s words haven’t been lost on Minor.
“I think it comes because I try to create things whether they’re there or not,” Minor said. “That’s not always good. Maybe some of the passes I make are erratic. I tend to maybe turn the ball over, but that happens when you try to force things.
“I hope I continue to get better. I’ll work hard on it, and I know coach Brown will help me. I need to get stronger. And I need to play heads-up defense a little better.”
Minor first realized he wasn’t in Texas anymore during his tryout for the Junior World Games team, coached by Brown, last summer.
“I got a taste of coach Brown’s style,” Minor said. “It was easy to tell what a disciplinarian he is. I could tell from when I played here this summer that he likes to pass and cut and pass and cut a lot.”
He said he’s accustomed to discipline – to a point.
“Coach (Jerry) Stone worked with a lot of discipline,” he said of his coach at Midland where he started on teams that went 68-5 over two seasons. “He stressed the basics, but he let our strengths come out, too.”
But minor was passed over and cut from the team that competed in Bormio, Italy. Istead, he competed for the East team in the National Sports Festival in North Carolina’s Dean Dome.
“I played with a lot of good players in North Carolina,” he said. “There was a lot of fresh talent. I was one of the oldest players there as a junior.”
Seeing the Festival competition helped Minor realize what kind of talent is out there, and what kind he’ll be playing with at KU.
Especially All-American Danny Manning.
“He’s even better playing with him than he looks on TV,” Minor said of Manning. “He tries to get you the ball – he can score every time he gets the ball, but he’ll give you the shot if you have a better one.
“There are a lot of All-Americans out there. There are probably thousands of All-Americans who never get discovered. But I feel I can hold my own with the best.”
Besides playing with major college talent, Minor experienced the biggest crowds of his career last summer.
“When I played at Midland, we’d get six- or seven-thousand. In North Carolina, at one point, we had about 12,000. The place seats 23,000, so now I’ve been in that type of atmosphere.”
But not the atmosphere he’ll soon be experiencing in rocking Allen Fieldhouse.
“I’ve heard so much about it,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to playing in it.”
Most of all, though, he’s looking forward to playing.
“I can remember when it seemed like months away,” he said. “Now it’s finally here and I’m glad. I’m ready for it.”
