Kirk Hinrich has been practicing a sport other than basketball this week.
“He’s either been in the swimming pool or is going to the pool,” Kansas University men’s basketball coach Roy Williams said Tuesday of the 6-foot-3 senior guard, who has been receiving treatments for a back strain that will keep him out of tonight’s game against Central Missouri State. “He could play, but I think it’d be silly to try to play him.”
Williams believes Hinrich will be able to play in Saturday’s game against Oregon in Portland, Ore.
“It’s a back strain is what it is,” Williams said. “I jokingly said they’ve done an MRI, bone scan, CAT scan, a normal X-ray. The only test they didn’t give him was to see if he was pregnant.”
KU’s 6-9 sophomore Wayne Simien (tendinitis right foot) has been practicing after spraining his ankle twice in the North Carolina game.
“Wayne’s ankle had quite a bit of swelling when we got back from New York. It’s something that’s probably going to affect him the entire season unless you give him two months off. And if you give him two months off the first day back he could hurt it again,” Williams said.
“It’s going to be a problem for a long time. The good news to me is he rolled it twice in the North Carolina game (last Wednesday), came out a couple minutes, went back in and played. He played effectively two nights later. His ankle is bothering him, but we don’t really have any other choice. I’ve been through this with a lot of players, even myself when I played 800 years ago. I played 12 games with a sore ankle. It’s the way it’s going to be. Get as much treatment as you can and tape it as well as you can and try to stay away from other people’s feet so you don’t sprain it again.”
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CMSU led by ex-Tiger: Central Missouri State is 4-0 under first-year coach Kim Anderson. Anderson, a former University of Missouri player and assistant coach and Portland Trail Blazer player, worked for the Big 12 the last three years as director of basketball operations.
After taking the CMSU job, he called KU senior associate AD Richard Konzem asking for a matchup.
“After he got the job Kim was having a really difficult time getting games to fill the schedule,” Williams said. “He knew we played a non-Division One team every year and also knew by being in the Big 12 office the schedule we normally play, that it wouldn’t hurt our RPI because of the strength of the rest of our schedule. Kim used that argument. Kim is a great guy. He worked awfully hard for us in the Big 12 office for a while and I said OK.”
Anderson is happy to be back in coaching. He worked as a MU assistant for several years.
“I really like to teach,” he said. “I think communication and getting kids to understand what we’re doing is best. When I get upset, I tell them my hope is in five years they will call me on the phone and say, ‘Coach I appreciate that,’ or ‘it helped me.’ What program does a great job of that is Kansas. I think that’s kind of a model program. We’re trying to get guys to understand this (playing college ball) is once in a lifetime experience and take advantage of it.”
The Mules’ tallest starters and leading scorers are 6-6 Brian Rhodes and Mark DeBaun, who average 15.5 and 14.5 ppg.
“Basically the kids here have done what I’ve asked them to do. “We’re not always very pretty. I’m sure there will be times tomorrow we’re not pretty because of the outstanding opponent we’ll be facing.”
