Self: DeBruce Center ‘great’

By Gary Bedore     Apr 30, 2016

Sara Shepherd
Outside KU's DeBruce Center is this bronze sculpture of James Naismith designed by the late KU professor Elden Tefft and completed after his death by his son, Kim Tefft.

One of the first things Bill Self did after returning to town from the last live period in recruiting was to check out the new 32,000-square-foot DeBruce Center, which opened Monday.

“I think it’s great. Obviously, it’s not complete. Three weeks from now, it’ll look different when all the exhibits and everything are done, but I think it’s a fabulous building for us and one that will attract many to breakfast and lunch on this side of campus (in Courtside Cafe, which is open),” Self, Kansas University’s 13th-year basketball coach, said Friday.

He was speaking in Allen Fieldhouse from the Bill Self Basketball Fantasy Experience powered by ProCamps Worldwide.

The DeBruce Center actually is connected to the fieldhouse, though the passageway is not quite complete.

The display space for James Naismith’s original rules of basketball (the rules were purchased by David and Suzanne Booth for $4.3 million) should be ready for the rules’ arrival in a few weeks.

“I haven’t seen it with the rules and with all the graphics and everything,” Self said. “That will probably be what I like the most. What I like most now is our student-athletes will be fed in a way that will be as good as anybody else in America does. All it does is solidify our facilities and give us the one thing we were actually missing.”

That’d be a state-of-the-art training table, which used to be in Burge Union.

Camp talk: ProCamps Worldwide has brought its Self Fantasy Camp back to KU for the fifth year. There are six teams of players 35 and over, with about eight players on a team.

The head coaches of the teams this weekend: Fresno State associate head coach Jerry Wainwright, plus national broadcasters Dino Gaudio, Doug Gottlieb, Fran Fraschilla, Miles Simon and Jay Williams.

“We’ve got Jerry, who actually coached a team, won games and lost games, and we’ve got five other guys who went undefeated because they are all television analysts and experts,” Self said with a laugh. “It’s a pretty good group of guys, certainly very knowledgeable. I think the campers will love being around these guys and having a chance to have first-hand experiences with them.”

Former KU forward Perry Ellis will hold a two-day ProCamp for boys and girls grades 1-12 on July 30-31 at Shawnee Mission West High School. For details, go to http://www.procamps.com/PerryEllis.

Recruit responds: Jarrett Allen, a 6-9 senior forward from St. Stephens Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, who is ranked No. 20 in the Class of 2016 by rivals.com, responded to a report Friday that he had cut his list of schools to Texas and Houston.

“Kansas is still on my list … I’m not sure where that came from,” Allen wrote on Twitter.

He averaged 19.7 points and 13.3 rebounds his senior season and led St. Stephen’s to a second straight Southwest Preparatory state championship.

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