To hear Kevin Young tell it, this year’s Kansas alumni team entering The Basketball Tournament is already ahead of where its predecessor was at this time four years ago.
“I don’t remember us being in the gym as much,” Young said Sunday. “We practiced a couple times … I got there like a day before. I feel like it’s a little bit more organized, not to knock anybody from the last one or anything.”
Young is one of three returners, along with Mario Little and Tyshawn Taylor from the 2019 Self Made TBT team, a group of KU alumni that lost its first-round matchup in lopsided fashion after Perry Ellis tore his patellar tendon in the opening moments of the game.
KU alumni like Taylor have returned to TBT in the intervening years, but Mass Street will be the first KU-centric team to take the floor since.
“I think after Perry’s injury at the beginning it kind of scared guys away,” Young said, but other than that I’m excited to redeem ourselves and get another opportunity to play for the team.”
Young was part of a six-player contingent from the Mass Street TBT squad that worked out Sunday afternoon in an open practice at Cutting Edge Performance off Clinton Parkway. He teamed up with a wide-ranging group of former Jayhawks — Mitch Lightfoot, Tyshawn Taylor, Jamari Traylor, Lagerald Vick — to run through a series of warmups and drills with Cutting Edge staff, along with a few kids representing Taylor’s TaylorMade Hoops organization.
The group then teamed up with Keith Langford for some lively 3-on-3 action.
Some of the players overlapped at KU; others know each other only as fellow alumni and are feeling out each other’s styles.
“It’s cool because I feel like I’m in the middle of the group,” Traylor said. “I was teammates with Thomas (Robinson), Tyshawn, I was teammates with Lagerald, it’s crazy to see him now.”
Traylor was a role player at power forward for the Jayhawks from 2012-16 who has played professionally in Austria, Greece, Japan and briefly the NBA G League since graduation. Three weeks ago, he finished his first season with Boca Juniors in Argentina.
The connection between him and Young — a fellow frontcourt standout and strong rebounder who transferred from Loyola Marymount to become the Jayhawks’ sixth man (2010-12) — could be key to Mass Street’s success. Traylor called him “one of my top teammates, one of my top guys in the locker room especially.”
“My locker was here, he was right there,” Traylor said, gesturing to indicate their proximity. “We got some chemistry going on, off the court and on the court.”
Much of the attention will be on Mass Street’s backcourt, which features two of the anchors of the team in Langford and Taylor, particularly because Langford, 39, has said this run will be his farewell to professional basketball. He has worked his way back from an Achilles tendinopathy that derailed his final years overseas. Taylor has also spent years away from professional basketball, but served as one of the primary organizers of this year’s squad, helping to recruit Traylor and Young: “I always like coming back and being a part of something with the KU guys, because we’re family,” Young said.
“Getting to just blend our styles, playing with Keith and watching him play, and playing with Tyshawn again is a lot of fun,” he added, “just seeing how fast he still is. And trying to guard him, obviously, you saw how hard it was (in practice).”
Young, who is of Puerto Rican descent, played professionally in Manatí and Mayagüez this past season.
After eventually concluding his own six-year KU career, Lightfoot has competed in Germany. Vick, whose own KU tenure got cut short by a leave of absence, most recently played in Uruguay and Mexico.
Following their morning practice at Cutting Edge, the group of six players was joined by twin coaches Marcus and Markieff Morris, guard Mario Little (an overseas veteran of more than a decade who played in Qatar and Venezuela this spring) and center Thomas Robinson (who played five seasons in the NBA, then went elsewhere).
FOE pic.twitter.com/GtOU6JL84e
— Mass Street – Kansas’ TBT Team (@MassStreetTBT) July 17, 2023
The roster has recently expanded to include a couple more big names in NBA champions Mario Chalmers and Brandon Rush. Chalmers has, of late, been on the national stage in the 3-on-3 Big3 league composed primarily of former NBA players.
It also added its lone non-Kansas representative, a former high school teammate of the Morris twins named Rodney Green who played college ball at La Salle.
This team will unite Wednesday night to take on a much less uniform group from We Are D3, which features representatives from Division III schools as distant as Texas-Dallas and UMass Boston, though most are in the northeast. The team is 0-4 in four TBT appearances.
“That’s the thing, though, you can’t underestimate anybody in the TBT,” Traylor said. “Guys can play, guys can shoot, guys can get rolling. You don’t want something like that to happen. You got to come out there, respect everybody, go out there, go hard.
“We got a good team too.”
Mass Street has another open practice coming up at Wichita Trinity Academy Tuesday morning.
Mitch Lightfoot during an open practice for the Mass St. TBT team Sunday afternoon in Lawrence ahead of The Basketball Tournament hosted in Wichita.
Lagerald Vick during an open practice for the Mass St. TBT team Sunday afternoon in Lawrence ahead of The Basketball Tournament hosted in Wichita.
Kevin Young during an open practice for the Mass St. TBT team Sunday afternoon in Lawrence ahead of The Basketball Tournament hosted in Wichita.
The Mass St. TBT team hosted an open practice Sunday afternoon in Lawrence ahead of The Basketball Tournament hosted in Wichita.
Keith Langford during an open practice for the Mass St. TBT team Sunday afternoon in Lawrence ahead of The Basketball Tournament hosted in Wichita.
Tyshawn Taylor during an open practice for the Mass St. TBT team Sunday afternoon in Lawrence ahead of The Basketball Tournament hosted in Wichita.
Lagerald Vick during an open practice for the Mass St. TBT team Sunday afternoon in Lawrence ahead of The Basketball Tournament hosted in Wichita.
Keith Langford during an open practice for the Mass St. TBT team Sunday afternoon in Lawrence ahead of The Basketball Tournament hosted in Wichita.
Jamari Traylor during an open practice for the Mass St. TBT team Sunday afternoon in Lawrence ahead of The Basketball Tournament hosted in Wichita.
Tyshawn Taylor dunks during an open practice for the Mass St. TBT team Sunday afternoon in Lawrence ahead of The Basketball Tournament hosted in Wichita.
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