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KU Insider Henry Greenstein checks in from Chicago with everything KU.
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00:00on kfh all right welcome back in everybody it is sports daily jacob albrock brady bowman henry
00:10greenstein in our ku insider glad to be with you on this wine shirt wednesday henry uh ku
00:19first test no melvin council i'd say they passed with flying colors last night 89 69 winners over
00:27kentucky trey white continues his early season uh tear through the competition which is a wonderful
00:35sign for ku because tyron stokes looks the part man he looks like the real deal what if trey white
00:43is this kind of player this year we've seen it for ku before right a guy that's been there a
00:48while
00:48just all of a sudden takes off and you're like oh my goodness oh chayabaji we saw with kevin mcculler
00:54before he got hurt like there are guys that do this for kansas i guess trey white can be that
00:59next guy and boy if he is it feels like the sky is the ceiling for this team yeah and
01:06there's reason
01:06to believe he could do that when you consider that he had never before been at the same school for
01:11more
01:11than one year but thanks to the uh the miracle it is the indiana court system suddenly he has the
01:16chance to uh to do so and you're right jalen wilson in the 22 to 23 season kevin mcculler the
01:23year
01:23afterward as you mentioned these sort of multi-talented wings really tend to thrive one
01:30thing that i think is good for trey white is that unlike those two players that i just mentioned
01:34there's a lot less pressure on him to be the guy because you have a number one recruit on the
01:38opposite wing um but yeah it's funny trey white that was a career high with 30 points um and it
01:45ends
01:46up being like the number three or four most important thing that happened yesterday just because
01:51ku was so thoroughly impressive in a way that it hasn't been um in a win over a marquee opponent
01:57this early in the year and sometime i understand they beat duke two seasons ago but other than that
02:03like that that went down to the wire there was no drama in this one um ku was by far
02:08the better team and
02:09uh did it without as you mentioned one of their best players who's going to be missing for the next
02:15eight weeks or so with a broken foot so yeah white was incredible um he's not always going to make
02:20half his threes but at the same time there's not reason to think that he'll make significantly fewer
02:26than 40 percent of them uh with what we've seen of him for the last year or so so yeah
02:31stokes and
02:32white that duo is going to present significant challenges uh for any team they play against when
02:37you consider their ability to both shoot the ball as stoke's symmetry yesterday and and drive to the
02:43basket be a shooter right he keeps taking seven eight threes a game shoot or shoot yeah well i go
02:49back to
02:50what bill self said in the off season when he was like if tyron's shooting is supposed to be his
02:55weakness like we're going to be in business and we hadn't totally seen it um and he didn't start out
03:01great yesterday but he finished four of eight like trey white um and yeah you can't just sit back and
03:10wait for him to drive into your chest um if the threat of him shooting the ball is there um
03:15and you
03:16can't really go under screens and is it the best part of his game no but now teams have to
03:22respect
03:22it for the entire rest of the year because of what he showed yesterday while they also continue to worry
03:27that they're going to get dunked on if they play him too aggressively so that was a great thing to
03:32see
03:32um and you know as as self said yesterday like he probably did better than expected in managing his
03:39emotions when you consider how significant of a game this was to him from the whole
03:42louisville kentucky perspective henry you're on the road right you you cover this one in chicago right
03:52yes i mean i'm in a residency in near uh midway airport right now i'm gonna head up yeah it's
03:59really glamorous i was gonna say like those are very clean ceilings got some good accent lighting in
04:06they're they're hooking you up with the lj world see if you forgot to pack your hawaiian too yeah but
04:11i i went the opposite direction i've got a sweater on and of course i'll be in morgantown this weekend
04:16i think it's supposed to snow while i'm there which is just awesome here we go here we go yeah
04:22you know
04:22you you mentioned that you touched on that with stokes uh and i'm reading more into it i didn't realize
04:28that uh he was that close to picking kentucky so much so that he was going to try and host
04:34an
04:34instagram live session uh in rup arena before announcing uh kansas growing up in louisville
04:41um he in this article uh talking about how it was kind of a personal thing for him to uh
04:48have the
04:48type of game that he had uh going back i mean talk about how close was that decision yeah i
04:55mean
04:56i don't know i think the perception was that ku had an edge for quite a long time before he
05:02ended
05:02up choosing them like in the end of april start of may but he did give kentucky like every opportunity
05:10uh to win his affection you know i think he went on a visit there really late in the process
05:15after
05:15they made some staff changes but i don't know it's kind of weird to do the whole revenge narrative on
05:22a team that wanted to pay you many millions of dollars to play for them and you decided not to
05:27go
05:28there but the way that he explained it was that you know he grew up in louisville in a family
05:33where
05:33some people supported louisville and some people support kentucky and he was one of the louisville
05:36people that that was what he said yesterday so i think that was part of it too obviously fans haven't
05:43been nice to him on social media from big blue nation ever since he spurned them and so yeah i
05:50i have
05:50i have little doubt that tyron stokes will find ways to have himself up before all sorts of uh
05:55games this season but this was definitely going to be one that had a lot of scrutiny
05:59uh around it and when you consider that you know kentucky ends up taking that pile of money and
06:04spending it on milan momchilovich who did absolutely nothing yesterday uh ku comes out with looking a
06:10little bit better in that particular transaction so the offense henry henry greenstein lawrence journal
06:16world uh kusports.com joining us our ku insider the offense looks great um even in a game without
06:24uh you know melvin council as the facilitator the the passing on this team continues to be i think
06:31the thing that jumps out the most is their ability to pass the ball to me but i i don't
06:38know really
06:39much about defensively i haven't thought a lot about i've always sort of guessed that this could
06:44be a good defensive team because of the size of stokes white and kaufman wren i mean i guess holding
06:50kentucky to 69 is probably a pretty good early season accomplishment what do we think of the
06:54defense so far in this season yeah i i mean i think it should be good you know obviously zoom
07:00giallo went off yesterday and was basically the only player keeping it up in the game and i kind of
07:04expect that without counsel there will be some times where an opposing guard is able to get the better
07:09of k's backcourt when you consider just kenny and blyden neither having particularly great length or size
07:15and neither being insanely experienced different from having six four melvin council who just
07:21embraces the responsibility of guarding other team's best player and then you know trey kaufman
07:26ran for all his utility as a communicator and his strength is not like he's not going to protect the
07:33rim not he's not he's not one of the true bill self centers of yesteryear right now he certainly in
07:42many ways looks like a player from yesteryear by the way it i guess tkr is going to shoot threes
07:46now
07:46that's something that we're all going to have to reckon with he he made two threes his entire last
07:51season at purdue and has already hit two the universe the universe is just sending kansas three-point
07:58makes because it's been so deficient for the last few years but but as you were saying with defense like
08:03i i think it'll be good um time will tell how good you know i look at that great i
08:11look at that
08:11starting lineup kenny blyden white stokes and kaufman wren and it's like there's no one in there
08:16that you think is like a stellar lockdown defender and even when you bring reeves and dawes off the
08:23bench reeves offers a little more rim protection we've seen it uh although he might just goaltend
08:28a random shot that he did yesterday too um and i think dawes has the athleticism to really embrace
08:34um improvement on that end of the floor but yeah time will tell um they can he's going to be
08:40a great
08:40defender with bill self coaching him don't you think his his physical traits with bill self like
08:45i i would imagine stokes by the end of this season is a is a really good defender yeah and
08:51there's a
08:51lot of promise there and we've already seen him hold up well against guards and bigs alike so a lot
08:56to
08:56like there um well it did the trick yesterday but there are going to be teams that test them
09:02in far different fashions you know i kind of wondered with kentucky starting two seven footers would
09:08they give reeves or dawes the start over wide and they didn't end up doing that but that is a
09:12look
09:13they can throw out say if they find themselves against florida or houston a week from tomorrow
09:17in the players era after playing the first two games of that tournament they're gonna need some
09:22size so we will see how they choose to do it um but it's probably reassuring for them to know
09:27that
09:27they don't have to look the exact same as a defensive lineup in every game yeah and henry i think
09:34one thing that always sticks out to me when i'm looking at uh box scores this time of year
09:38early in the season is like you know how's the assist to turnover ratio because that's that's
09:43something that could always be so messy you know this this time of year but ku last night was uh
09:4824
09:49to 10 on uh assist to turnovers as a team uh taylon kenny had eight uh assist uh tkr had
09:57six i mean uh
09:58talk about that that's that's what you want to see this this early in the season is is that type
10:03of
10:03ratio and that many assists yeah and when you think about bill self having expressed concerns
10:08about the team's ball movement like there wasn't too much to be concerned about yesterday um and
10:13honestly that probably has a little to do with the fact that melvin council is one of the players with
10:19whom the ball sticks the most when he's in the game which is not necessarily a quality you want
10:24to your point guard even if it served ku so well uh and many times last season have him play
10:28iso ball
10:28but yeah you're right i mean you know obviously kenny's not going to go one for nine every game
10:32and eight assists is impressive and trey kaufman wren like the things he can do with his back to the
10:38basket when guys are backdoor cutting behind him are just so impressive and we've seen that in each
10:43of the last two games um that's so useful his ability to just kind of facilitate things from the
10:49high post is really uncommon for a big man and that'll help uh ku make up for whatever distribution
10:56it may have lost uh with council's injury so i really like um how they looked in terms of sharing
11:02the ball uh they understand they need to get numerous players involved in order to put as much
11:07stress as possible in the opposing defense and yeah didn't make a lot of super sloppy turnovers last
11:13night which is something that hasn't always been the case and on the flip side and in fact they didn't
11:18allow any points off turnovers they committed 10 didn't allow any points and had 22 points off
11:23kentucky's turnovers i think it's testament to getting back in transition but yeah you're not
11:28going to get a disparity like that too often uh mom silovich you mentioned it didn't have a great game
11:34he has had good games against kansas uh in the past at iowa state he had uh in ames last
11:42year
11:43he hit all those threes i think he had yeah 18 in that game they've defended him well though for
11:49the most
11:50part who who was on the aside who do you give most of the you know the the flowers to
11:55today for
11:56holding down what many people think will be a like an all-american type player this year
12:01yeah i think trey white's number one on the list is the guy who has matched up with him most
12:05frequently
12:05and there were a lot of possessions where leroy blyden despite a seven to eight inch height difference
12:11actually held up against him pretty well you know one the early possession where i got the sense that
12:16was going to stop him pretty effectively is when he was backing down leroy blyden just outside the
12:21paint and just settled for a fade away for no reason and missed it and i was like all right
12:27well
12:27that's probably not the decision i would have made in that situation and sorry i'm i'm not trying to be
12:33mean but it was a team effort though because they switched they fought through screens as as trey white
12:41said like they bluffed at him they threw other guys at him at times they gave him different looks and
12:46really you know bill self said it's not about limiting how many he makes it's really more about
12:52limiting how many attempts we only attempts three that's tied for his lowest number of attempts since
12:58january 11th 2025 it's been a long time since the team prevented uh him from shooting many threes to
13:06begin with he didn't take one the entire first half and that's supposed to be one of the primary
13:10engines of kentucky's scoring and the thing is like when he catches the ball he can fire it so quickly
13:17and he has an array of moves as we've seen in recent years step backs side steps to get space
13:23but ku just absolutely blanked him i mean every time he caught the ball there was someone immediately in
13:29his face to prevent him from doing anything like that and kentucky's offense didn't really have the
13:34motion and disorienting quality necessary to shake guys off them so that to me was one of the most
13:39impressive elements of last night's performances and it certainly helped as well that ku got both
13:44of kentucky's big men in foul trouble in the first four minutes of the game um to kind of clear
13:50up
13:50space for the rest of the jayhawks henry ah shucks we're out of time we don't get to talk about
13:55football
13:56yeah oh man um we'll take notes by the way on how to defend him we need the shockers to
14:01beat them in
14:02lexington later uh in this non-conference season so uh noted uh all right henry we'll follow along
14:08at the lawrence journal world hey you sports.com that was a
14:10you