De Sousa and the rest of the Jayhawks arrive in Lawrence ready to roll

By Matt Tait     Dec 27, 2017

Kansas basketball coach Bill Self told the Journal-World late Tuesday night that all of his Jayhawks made it back to campus on Tuesday to begin preparations for Friday’s matchup with Texas.

Several but not all of the Jayhawks returned to their hometowns for a couple of days following last week’s victory over Stanford in Sacramento to celebrate the holidays with friends and family.

Included in Tuesday’s on-campus arrival was new freshman Silvio De Sousa, the 6-foot-9, 245-pound forward from IMG Academy, who just last week learned that he had become eligible to join the Jayhawks for the second semester of the 2017-18 season after graduating from IMG a semester early.

De Sousa arrived in Lawrence near the end of KU’s Tuesday night practice and will have to pass a physical exam Wednesday morning before joining the Jayhawks on the practice floor.

His status for Friday’s game remains up in the air as he first has to have his amateurism certified by the NCAA before he is allowed to participate in competition.

As soon as he passes the physical, though, De Sousa will be eligible to participate in team practices.

The photo De Sousa attached in the Tweet that announced his arrival in Lawrence (see above) was taken during his official visit to campus back in August. The new KU big man will wear No. 22 when he does finally suit up with the Jayhawks, which was the number he wore at IMG.

While there clearly are issues and elements of this team that need to be addressed as the Jayhawks continue to try to piece their team together and find a way to fully click, it’s also clear that the team leaders are locked in on getting everyone ready for the Big 12 portion of KU’s schedule.

“We feel pretty good,” Devonte’ Graham said after the Stanford victory. “We get to go home for Christmas and have a few days with our family and then we come back and it’s time to ramp it up a couple notches and go on this nice little conference run.”

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.