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KU Insider Henry Greenstein checks in.
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00:02welcome back in everybody and now digging deeper with the teams you follow it's another sports
00:09daily insider interview on kfh that it is henry greenstein with us our ku insider joining us on
00:17sports daily for a weekly visit we appreciate it you can follow along with henry all the time at
00:22the lawrence journal world kusports.com at henry greenstein on x how are you this morning henry
00:29i'm doing just fine man it's a busy time um i can't tell if that's a hawaiian i mean it's
00:35yeah
00:35it's supposed to create i think i wore this one of the times that that you were not here it's
00:39just
00:40like the most colorful non-hawaiian shirt that i have so i feel like it's in the right spirit
00:46look i i had that mine it was cold in the basement this morning so we all adapt and we
00:51we you know
00:52we get to we get what we need to get going here yeah you'll see some interesting ones in the
00:58next
00:58couple weeks or maybe less interesting because obviously next weekend next week is the champions
01:04classic and after that is the players era so i'm not going to have my full my full wardrobe on
01:10display
01:10whenever i talk to you guys well yeah i mean you just bring three or four hawaiians with you on
01:14the
01:14road that's not that's not a big deal yeah i suppose so but that's what it always does yeah
01:20other than that everything's fine uh back in the day you'd have been in like maui or some island
01:25you know true destination you could have got that done easy uh let's start let's start with
01:30basketball henry we have a game in the books um look i i think i'm pretty good with what we
01:37saw
01:38i don't you know i don't know what they were sloppy for sure i don't know how sloppy we expect
01:46them to be
01:46over the course of the season i would probably expect them to be a little sloppy out of the gates
01:51as
01:52they work in kaufman wren and try to find their rotation and all those things so you don't like
01:57that but at the end of the day they win by 30 um trey white boy if that's a if
02:06that's a sign of
02:07things to come that may be what this team needs more than any other thing i would think is him
02:12to be
02:12that kind of offensive player i don't know if he can be but what what did you what did you
02:16observe in
02:17the opener yeah i mean i think inevitably as as the season goes on his his shots may be spread
02:23around a little bit more and stokes might have the ball in his hand a little bit more so i'm
02:27not
02:27sure he's always going to get 22 and of course you know last season 23 was a season high but
02:32we've
02:33already seen him get 22 in the first game he had an exhibition where he had 25 so i i
02:37think white's
02:38going to have an incredible year um i think he's he's poised to for first team all big 12 consideration
02:44for sure i mean when you consider the step that he took last year and then the fact that he's
02:49never
02:49been in the same program for more than one season before there's a lot to like about this setup and
02:54we know he's a premier defender which always helps his case too right yeah and i think more maybe even
03:00more importantly like he won't be in a position this year where he has to defend four men which he
03:05did sometimes last season and didn't really go that great i mean that was only a little but it was
03:10like ku had so little depth in that area that when tiller and badunga weren't both on the floor
03:15you were playing small and trey was the foreman so yeah so that's one thing um but yeah i don't
03:21think
03:21anyone could be too annoyed with what they saw the other day you know people are going to rightfully
03:24be a little irritated by the free throw shooting um and it really hasn't looked that great in any of
03:29the times ku has taken the court thus far and self called it a major concern uh i think they'll
03:36be
03:36better but i think stokes in particular who's going to be there 10 15 times a game is going to
03:42need to uh be a little bit more efficient i think he was four for seven in this most recent
03:47game
03:47um but it's like it's guys who you would think would be making them who aren't uh at least at
03:54the
03:54rate you would expect so that's something um i got to shoot some more threes it was encouraging to
03:59see leroy blyden play more like what he was supposed to this office and i think that was really good
04:03obviously you know it's a difference doing it against the guards from fordham as opposed to
04:08those from duke um and we'll see when they play longer backcourts if he can continue to have an
04:14impact but even just knocking down a couple threes like that was supposed to be his primary utility to
04:20this team and the secondary thing was supposed to be creating off the bounce so that was one of the
04:25most encouraging elements of the game um obviously tkr debuts uh you know self-said postgame he's
04:31already calling out plays and telling people where to go and he's been here two and a half weeks or
04:36whatever so that was pretty cool um yeah i'm excited i think this team is extremely talented
04:41and i think probably the thing that stands out to me most as compared to the last few years is
04:45it's not like if one person subs out there's a giant void in their place um and i don't mean
04:52that
04:52in an offensive fashion to jamari mcdowell or marco jackson but when those guys were on the floor the
04:59last couple years their job was basically to keep the ball moving and defend i i think that now
05:06you have guys coming in off the bench who could start for other big 12 teams which is kind of
05:11how
05:11it was when bill self had uh some of his more successful rosters so i think there's a lot to
05:16like i think the timing and the crispness of their offense is way off right now but i think it'll
05:21get
05:21better as we get deeper into the non-conference schedule henry you might have touched on some of
05:28this already but just in the context of i guess the question kind of a two-parter uh especially
05:33i guess when you look at the box score uh what's there that you look at and you say yep
05:39that that's
05:40what i expected that that's kind of how i thought it would go and then on the other side of
05:44it what's
05:45what's something you saw whether on the box score in the game that that surprised you that you didn't
05:49expect well that's a good question let me bring it up so i don't refer to anything out of turn
05:55i mean i don't think that melvin council and tyrant dokes are going to turn the ball over four times
06:01each uh over the last year council was extremely efficient and it kind of goes back to what i was
06:06saying before like the timing of these set and they just started running sets like they weren't running
06:11any sets until recently the timing is not there i think that they will not be as turnover prone
06:16um as the year goes on council had a really good assist to turnover ratio over most of last season
06:22stokes maybe there'll be some more growing pains but i expect him to do much better than one assist
06:27and four turnovers and look a lot more like the passer we saw in those exhibition games because
06:31passing is one of his top skills so i don't think they're going to be as careless with the ball
06:35going
06:36forward and certainly i don't think you'll see too many more 17 turnover uh performances from the
06:41dayhawks um you know i'm not sure i'm necessarily surprised by this but paul and bia has kind of
06:47been confined to the end of the bench at this point which is kind of crazy when you think about
06:52the fact that a lot of people were expecting him to be the starting center for much of the offseason
06:57now i i was warning anyone who could listen that that would be a that would be a big stretch
07:02for
07:02someone who played like five minutes a game in his brief appearances last year but it really seems
07:08like he's fallen out of favor with reeves coming back healthy and tkr being added to the roster
07:13i'm just not sure he's gonna i mean i guess i can see him situationally being deployed in
07:19circumstances where they need more rim protection but even when he's out there late like he he still
07:25looks uncomfortable and he looks better but he still doesn't look like someone who's ready to be
07:32a major contributor for this program right now so i think the fact that he got four minutes in mop
07:36-up
07:37duty is probably more representative of what we'll see um and yeah like it it was pretty clear there
07:44was sort of a top eight in this game when you look at the five who started and then of
07:50course tkr
07:51replaces reeves in the second half and then blyden and dawes and that to me indicates the the top of
07:58the hierarchy right now that's not to say that people like trent perry and dennis parker jr
08:02won't find ways to figure in more prominently and i think self likes a lot about both of those guys
08:07especially recently with some of the energy and defense that perry's displayed but you can start
08:12to see the the shell of a rotation kind of forming even with the minutes in this very first game
08:19you mentioned the mbs i'm glad you did because i was going to ask you about that henry greenstein or
08:23uh insider here i i've been saying this i think a lot in conversations about ku basketball and and i
08:33and i feel pretty good about it about it if ku gets to a point where melvin counsels like their
08:39fourth
08:39best player this team's going to be awesome i i think coming in maybe people his return had so much
08:48height but i think there's maybe a misrepresentation of what he is can be and should be on the team
08:55like we love his energy we all love watching him play but it's not going to be good if he's
09:01the best
09:01player like trey white needs to be in that spot uh obviously stokes needs to be in that spot maybe
09:08kenny does or trey kaufman wren now so i feel like in a good way if he kind of goes
09:14down that hierarchy a
09:15little bit this this team feels like it could be really good if he's having to be the go-to
09:21i'm not
09:22so sure i believe that yeah i mean the fewer second half possessions that can consist of counsel trying
09:28to take a guy off the dribble right better and to be clear he had a lot of success uh
09:33at that last
09:34year but also when the offense and self has said stuff to this effect when the offense has looked the
09:40most stagnant it's when the ball's sticking with someone like melvin or to a lesser extent
09:45tyrant stokes but like like i think his his better role will be to facilitate and play great
09:53defense and then chip in one of those contested floaters every now and then and end up with a
09:59stat line more like what he had in this game with with 10.6 rebounds and seven assists no one
10:04will
10:04complain about that um and will there be games where he takes 25 shots this year i don't think so
10:11like he did against arizona last season um without dp i i think that he's a clutch player and i
10:19think
10:19his conditioning is better than anyone else on the floor at any given moment and he can come through
10:23weight in games and that's all useful but i also don't think you want him to be the ball the
10:28guy with
10:28the ball at the end of the shot clock all the time um and i don't think you want trey
10:32white to be that
10:33either uh which he was a lot of the time last year too um but yes i i agree with
10:39your premise
10:39and it's very easy to see things shaking out in a way where he is the fourth best player if
10:45you
10:45consider trey tyron and tkr to be the uh the potential three best ahead of him all right henry
10:52let's uh at the time we got left let's talk a little bit about ku football i know that uh
10:57coach
10:57leipold not very optimistic about isaiah marshall being ready uh for ucf uh is that what you expect
11:04to see more cole ballard and how did you think he he played uh last week obviously a
11:10heartbreaking loss in the manner that uh ku lost uh last week but uh going forward you know what's
11:18the latest we'll start with marshall what do we know there yeah that that game was pretty horrific
11:22i mean that was that was one of the worst losses that they've had under leipold for sure um yeah
11:29i
11:29mean so the thing about leipold is there are very rarely going to be circumstances in which a guy who
11:36doesn't like practice for a considerable portion of the week ends up starting um we've seen this
11:41consistently throughout his tenure and i think that has a lot to do with why ballard started the tcu and
11:48i would say he was fine he was good on the deep ball and he had some decent touch on
11:56some short
11:56passes as well but didn't throw intermediate at all and obviously that fourth down was was pretty
12:02awful although i will say like 99 times out of 100 that just gets knocked down for a turnover on
12:08downs
12:08and not batted to another guy who returned 60 yards for a touchdown so we can't hold that against him
12:13too
12:14much although he did almost throw another pick six that was called back due to a pretty soft
12:18pass interference as for this week it's tough to say i would i lean ballard at this precise moment
12:25just because i think that just from what i saw marshall at tcu when he was warming up beforehand
12:30he he didn't look like he was full speed at all he looked like he was encumbered by whatever his
12:35lower leg injury is you know andy kodnicki said yesterday both guys were at practice and taking reps
12:40on the other hand we know ballard himself is not fully healthy either because he missed a huge
12:45chunk of the year due to a shoulder thing he suffered against against missouri so i i don't
12:50really know where they're going to take it in all honesty i think if they can get like if it's
12:55something
12:55like 90 ballard versus 80 marshall maybe they'll go with marshall but i honestly don't have a great
13:02answer for you because i think we're not really going to get much clarity until the availability reports
13:07start coming out tonight i definitely don't see it as a thing where chase jenkins is going to start
13:12though like i i know they're both beaten up but i'm pretty sure they'll pick one of those guys
13:16but like today is one of their big practice days so whoever gets more reps today probably ends up
13:23starting down the line this is one of those games in the chances now for six wins are dwindling but
13:29they
13:29are home favorites this weekend uh against ucf and obviously vegas doesn't know who the quarterback's
13:36going to be either i would think either quarterback in kansas ought to be able to beat ucf at home
13:41yeah i mean everyone should be a home favorite against ucf because ucf hasn't won a road game in
13:45two and a half years so anyone who anyone who hosts ucf should automatically be a favorite
13:52but it's still a talented team they beat byu they've got athletes on the perimeter
13:57last year ucf went up 14 nothing on ku so we'll see how it goes
14:02all right henry we appreciate it at least it's basketball
14:04you
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