If what Bill Self said Monday is any indication, the Kansas men’s basketball team should get a real test on its preseason tour to Puerto Rico.
Self told reporters from the Jayhawk Club, where he was speaking at the Crimson and Blue Classic fundraiser hosted by the Mass St. Collective, that KU expects to play one game against a professional Puerto Rican team and two games against the Bahamian national team.
He said the Bahamas in particular, a team currently in training that has a roster laden with NBA stars, could present a challenging matchup for the Jayhawks, even if not all their top players take the court.
“We’ve been told that Klay (Thompson), Klay’s brother (Mychel Thompson), DeAndre (Ayton), Buddy (Hield), Eric Gordon — we’ve been told that they should at least be there,” Self said, adding that it’s not clear yet how much the Bahamas Basketball Federation will actually have them play.
And when KU spends a week in Puerto Rico beginning Aug. 1, it will be with its full roster.
Self said that sophomore guard Arterio Morris will take the trip to Puerto Rico. Morris faces a Class A misdemeanor assault charge after a June 2022 altercation with his ex-girlfriend, prior to the start of his freshman year at Texas, as the AP and other outlets have reported. As of Monday afternoon, Morris still had a jury trial announcement on the docket set for July 25 and jury trial set for Aug. 2, according to Denton County, Texas, court records.
“Arterio’s part of our team,” Self said. “There’s nothing about that. This thing happened before he even went to Texas, and Texas went through everything, we’ve gone through everything, so Arterio, he’s definitely going to play for us.”
KU will therefore bring all of its remaining 10 scholarship players and assorted walk-ons, after Marcus Adams Jr. announced he was leaving the team Sunday. Self said he expects these sorts of late departures to become the norm in college basketball, “the way this system is set up now.”
The Jayhawks are still looking to add at least one more player — “In a perfect world, if we add, we’d like whoever we add to go,” Self said — and he added he’s currently thinking of his roster in terms of eight or nine available players, with Zach Clemence still expected to redshirt and one additional potential redshirt in play.
“Getting a new player to come in and get acclimated obviously would be a big bonus going into the fall, that they’ve already bypassed some steps,” he said. “But it’s not something that’s going to make or break us in the summer.”
