CHICAGO — After Kansas guard Melvin Council Jr. had surgery on his broken foot on Tuesday, KU coach Bill Self said in his postgame radio interview from the United Center locker room, “I doubt he’s listening, but if he was, we know everything went well and he’ll be a fast healer and get back.”
Council may not have been tuned in for Self’s conversation with color analyst Greg Gurley after the Jayhawks’ 89-69 win over Kentucky, but he found his way onto the radio regardless.
As the discussion was winding down, Self spoke briefly to Council on a FaceTime call, the head coach’s end of which was captured on the broadcast.
“How are you doing, big boy?” Self asked Council. “You happy for your guys? We missed you, though. Are you in your apartment now? Mom spoiling you? Good. OK, you in pain?”
Council answered no to that last question, and Self encouraged him to stay on his painkillers — “You only take them when you need them though, bud,” he added. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”
KU’s veteran point guard, an emotional leader of last year’s squad who is back eligible this season thanks to an injunction against the NCAA in his home state of New York, isn’t expected to return to action until the new year after he broke his foot in practice on Monday.
“I know he wanted to be out here today, but for him, just get healthy and we’ll see in a little bit,” forward Trey Kaufman-Renn said.
In the first game without him since he arrived in Lawrence, though, KU handled his absence well. Facing their first real test of the regular season, freshman guard Taylen Kinney and newly inserted starter Leroy Blyden Jr., a sophomore transfer from Toledo, didn’t score well but still made their presence felt against the Wildcats. Kinney finished with four points, eight assists, three rebounds and two steals, and Blyden had eight points of his own.
“How often do you have your two guards go 3 of 18 from the field and still control the game?,” Self said in the interview with Gurley. “… I thought TK and Leroy were both really, really good, even though numbers don’t show it.”
As Kaufman-Renn noted, while Blyden is the most direct replacement for Council, making up for his lost production is a team effort.
“Melvin, what he brings, being able to push the ball and push the pace and his defensive intensity, I was glad to see the guards really step up,” Kaufman-Renn said.
He noted that they prevented Kentucky sharpshooter Milan Momcilovic from attempting a 3-pointer in the first half (he finished with five points on 2-for-7 shooting, with Tre White and Blyden doing much of the work defensively).
“And so really stepping up on the defensive end, I thought they did an incredible job,” Kaufman-Renn said, “especially when you have somebody like Melvin out who’s a really good defender and really good player.”
The absence of Council will certainly continue to hurt KU, particularly as they head into a Players Era tournament that will require playing three games in three days. (The Jayhawks’ first game will be on Tuesday night against UNLV.) But on the other hand, even without the sixth-year guard, Self still had nine players that he felt comfortable playing in Tuesday’s blue-blood matchup, and all acquitted themselves well.
“You know, we’re not as deep as we were, but it will be nice knowing that you don’t have to play seven or eight guys to get through a game in a three-day-in-a-row tournament,” Self said. “Hopefully we’ll use that to our advantage.”
