Luke Axtell’s basketball comeback begins tonight in Dallas.
Axtell, Kansas University’s 6-foot-10, 220-pound senior guard/forward from Austin, Texas, will join 11 other players for Big 12 Foreign Tour Team practices today through Monday at the Verandah Club of the Wyndam Anatole Hotel.
One practice will be held tonight, two on Sunday and one more on Monday.
The Big 12 team, coached by Colorado’s Ricardo Patton, will head to Austria on Tuesday and begin a six-game series against Austrian club teams on Thursday. The Big 12 squad will return to Dallas on Aug. 18.
“It will be really strange playing with these guys I played against for three years,” said Axtell, who played 20 games for the Jayhawks last season before leaving the team with an undisclosed medical condition.
He’s been working out with a trainer the past several months in Austin.
“It’s cool to be on a team playing against another country. It’s going to be great to see how European teams play, but it’ll be really cool to see Austria,” Axtell said.
The Big 12 team will play a game apiece in Vienna, Traiskirchen, Gmunden, Oberwart, Kapfenberg and St. Polten.
“It gives me a chance to get back into the swing of real basketball,” Axtell said. “I really haven’t had that this summer. It’s a good thing to get going again before I get to school, and I’ll be able to play with great players.”
Other team members are: Terry Black, Baylor; D.J. Harrison, Colorado; Jamaal Tinsley, Iowa State; Quentin Buchanan, Kansas State; Brian Grawer, Missouri; Cary Cochran, Nebraska; Nolan Johnson, Oklahoma; Andre Williams, Oklahoma State; Chris Owens, Texas; Bernard King, Texas A&M; and Cliff Owens, Texas Tech.
Glad Roy stayed: Like everybody else close to Kansas basketball, Axtell was left in limbo for a week in early July when Williams debated whether or not to take the North Carolina job.
“I wasn’t going to transfer (if Williams left KU). It was more like, ‘Oh, no, a third coach,”‘ said Axtell, who played a year at Texas under Tom Penders before transferring to Kansas.
“I would have had to get used to another system. That was the worst of it, getting used to a third system. I’ve been in two programs already. I was very relieved, to say the least.”
Axtell on KU’s upcoming season: “We have the talent to do whatever we want to do. Everyone knows that. It’s just a matter of us doing it.”
Campus tours: Chancellor Robert Hemenway and his son Zack, a senior at Lawrence High, toured the campuses of North Carolina and Duke earlier this week.
On their trip, they happened upon new UNC hoops coach Matt Doherty, and former UNC coaches Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge at lunch.
“It was a coincidence. They were eating at the same place. We wished Matt luck. He seemed really excited to be there,” Hemenway said. “He was gracious as always. No question he’ll do a great job at North Carolina.”
Doherty, a former KU assistant, worked one year as head coach at Notre Dame before being elevated to the prestigious UNC job.
KU coach in Hawaii: UNC coaching legend Smith has said he holds no ill will toward KU’s Williams for turning down the Carolina coaching job.
No kidding. Williams and Smith are in Hawaii, relaxing and playing some golf.
