Entering week three of the preseason, Kansas University’s men’s basketball team still is not a finished product.
“No, we are not ready to play, but hopefully we’ll be ready by Sunday,” KU coach Bill Self said Monday as his Jayhawks continued scrimmaging in anticipation of their first exhibition game against Emporia State.
“We haven’t talked about special situations much — anything like end-of-shot-clock situations. We have practiced against zone; we’ve played some zone. We’ve practiced against man; we’ve played a lot of man. So the nuts and bolts, so to speak, we’ve got in. Now we’ve got to put in some crutches, some special scoring plays and really work on situations a lot in the next couple of weeks.”
KU will play 7 p.m. exhibitions against Emporia State (Sunday) and Washburn (Nov. 14), then open for real Nov. 19 against Vermont.
“Defensively, we haven’t been great. Rebounding, we haven’t been great, but we’ve actually done pretty well in the areas we’ve tried to emphasize on a given day,” Self said.
The Jayhawks continue to nurse nicks and bruises. Three players — guards Alex Galindo, Jeremy Case and Stephen Vinson — have yet to practice and only have worked on the side and on the stationary bike because of groin pulls.
“All three were fairly severe (pulls),” Self said, noting he hoped freshman Galindo would be able to practice Wednesday. “He’s got a pulled muscle. It takes a while to heal.
“Basketball is a little different from a lot of sports. He can run forward — start and stop. When he slides, it’s when he potentially can hurt it again. We’re hopeful he’ll get back soon. This is hurting him as much as anybody.
“Stephen knows what we’re trying to do. Jeremy knows what we’re trying to do (from last season). Alex doesn’t yet. He needs the reps as much as anybody.”
Self said junior walk-on guard Vinson could return in a week. Case, however, who has a hairline fracture in the pelvic bone, remains a red-shirt candidate.
“I would say every day he misses there’s less chance to play this year,” Self said. “He’ll more than likely red-shirt. We don’t anticipate him being able to play in any game-type situations in the next couple weeks.”
Walk-on center Matt Kleinmann definitely will take a red-shirt season, but the other red-shirt candidate, sophomore walk-on guard Nick Bahe, may be playing too well to consider keeping on the bench all year.
“Right now we are both open to anything,” Self said of he and Bahe, “but I’d say he’s certainly been one of our better performers in practice so far. I have confidence in him. I think he’s a good player. Whether we do it or not this year, we’ll talk some more. I want to do what’s fair for him.”
Freshman big man C.J. Giles, who sat out a few practices because of shin splints, has returned to practice.
Freshman guard Russell Robinson has impressed at practice shooting and distributing despite having several bandages on his hands. He has two jammed fingers on his right hand and a jammed thumb on his left.
Junior Moulaye Niang has spent time on the stationary bike after spraining his ankle at practice.
“We haven’t seen everybody at full force yet, even though we are not far off,” Self said.
