While some of the Jayhawks were suffering homesickness, Brown was battling separation anxiety.

Brown, KU’s 6-foot-3 junior center from Virginia Beach, Va., gave birth to a baby boy last March 20.

Less then eight months later, Brown was back on the court.

“It was pretty hard coming back. I didn’t do nothing for weeks,” Brown said.

“I got here and started having back problems, hip problems, knee problems. I had trouble getting back in shape. I’d say I’m about 65 percent where I should be.”

That’s physically. Mentally, Brown admits, sometimes she’s some 1,200 miles away.

“It’s real hard. I think about him all the time,” Brown said of young Jachon Nathaniel Maurice Brown, who’s growing up with Brown’s parents in Virginia Beach. “But I know he’s with good people, my parents. I’m always calling them. I always want to ask if he can come down for a while, but it would be hard with school and everything.”

Being a major-college student-athlete is tough. Being a major-college student-athlete long-distance mother is tougher.

“Especially early on, it was very difficult for Dalchon,” Kansas coach Marian Washington said. “But she understands that what she’s doing has the ability to make an impact on both of their futures. She’s fortunate she has a family that has really supported her. I remind her she’s very blessed.”

Brown, who transferred to KU last fall from Independence Community College, didn’t feel that way when she first learned of her pregnancy. She was about eight months into her pregnancy when she realized she was with child on Feb. 4, four days before her 20th birthday.

“I wasn’t showing or anything,” Brown said. “The doctor made me stop playing. My coach was mad.”

Brown’s parents weren’t too thrilled, either, especially her dad, Robert.

“I was scared. I was the baby, always a good girl. It was the last thing my dad expected,” said Brown, the youngest of three children. “He was really mad at first, but he grew on my dad. Now he goes everywhere with him. My dad takes him to work. They go fishing together. They do everything together.”

And little Jashon who was named by Dalchon’s Independence teammates marks every milestone without his mother.

“He’s doing everything,” Dalchon said with a hint of sadness in her voice. “He’s talking. He’s got four teeth. He’s walking. He’s fighting with everybody at daycare.”

In her 28 seasons as KU’s coach, Washington has had “several” players become mothers during their careers.

“Often times, people don’t know about them,” Washington said. “Those are areas that may be a big difference between what men have to experience. Women in that situation are trying to do a lot of things, trying to be a student and a parent and still trying to do a good job for the program. It’s tough.”

“It’s tough, but this is my dream, to play college basketball,” Brown counters. “I’m fulfilling my dream and my dad’s dream to play basketball.”

Jachon’s father isn’t part of his life, and that’s just fine with Dalchon.

“My parents, my brothers, my coaches, myself, we’re all in the picture,” she said. “His dad isn’t in the picture. He doesn’t need a dad, as long as he has a man in his life, and that’s my dad.”