Kansas freshman point guard Mario Kinsey, who missed 10 days of practice after surgery to alleviate anterior compartment syndrome in his lower right leg, figures to play some tonight against the California All-Stars.
Tipoff is 7:05 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse.
“I hope to get five or six minutes out of him,” Kansas coach Roy Williams said, noting Kinsey, KU’s 6-foot-2 red-shirt football quarterback from Waco, Texas has practiced approximately one half of each practice this week.
“He’s a sharp young man. Don’t tell him I said that,” Williams said, grinning. “He’s about as cocky a little rascal as I’ve ever seen. We’re trying to be cautious with our praise of Mario.”
As reported earlier this week, Kinsey and four other walk-ons have made the team.
Brett Ballard (6-0 point guard) and Chris Zerbe (6-5 forward) have been with the squad since the start of school.
Todd Kappelmann (6-9 forward) and Lewis Harrison (6-0 point guard) played lastyear at Butler County Community College and Kansas City CC respectively.
Harrison and Kappelmann survived walk-on tryouts two weeks ago.
“They came from general tryouts of about 50 kids. My assistants thought they were the best,” Williams said.
“They’ve practiced with us seven practices. I told them Sunday they’d be with us. They were excited and the kids already on the team were very excited for them.
“What they do is help you in practice, help you to be able to have a practice. Hopefully they’ll be able to push the othrs and make them better. I told all of ’em, that’s their job. They are nice young men all of them,” Williams added.
Bryant Nash, a 6-6 forward from Carrollton, Texas, figures to play some tonight, Williams indicated.
“If I knew what to expect from Bryant, I could tell you,” Williams joked.
“As a freshman you are a little intimidated as to what goes on at a regular practice, much less in front of 16,300 people. He has an ability to get offensive boards. That is important to us.”
Soph Drew Gooden was asked Tuesday what his thoughts are about possibly leaving school for the NBA.
“I could stay four years. Why not stay here four years?” he said. “I don’t have to work right now. Everything is paid for. I’m basically just going to school, playing basketball, living the college life.”
He said students ask him all the time whether he’s in college for the long haul or just two or three years.
“A lot of people ask me about it. It’s my life. You make the decision best for you,” Gooden said. “You play it by ear. You don’t bank on anything like, ‘I am going to leave after this year.’ You just go year to year and don’t think about that.”
Kansas coach Williams spent the morning and early afternoon hours Tuesday trying to reach all of KU’s NBA players by phone.
Jayhawks in the NBA are: Jacque Vaughn, Danny Manning, Greg Ostertag, Utah Jazz; Raef LaFrentz, Denver Nuggets; Paul Pierce, BostonCeltics; Scot Pollard, Sacramento Kings.
“I’m trying to wish them all good luck,” Williams said. “I said, ‘How you doing?’ just now to Scot. He said, ‘I’m playing too well. I’m scoring.’ They’ll expect that from me now,”‘ Pollard joked to Williams. “Their first four are all on the road all home openers of other teams. Somebody in the NBA has something against that team,” he joked.
