22 Days Until Kansas Basketball: Ladies Night Recap

Last night Kansas basketball had its annual ladies night out, which in my experience (second hand given that I have never gone) KU does a good job keeping it informative and entertaining without making sure women know they are second class sports citizens like a ton of these nights do.

Like every year, there was a Q&A, a meet and greet with the players, and Bill Self went through some scouting. Bill Self also offered some quotes about how the team has progressed so far.

The most notable news from the night is KU academic advisor Scott Ward, who had surgery to repair a tear in his aorta, is expected to make a full recovery.

The other big news is that Carlton Bragg sat out Wednesday’s practice with back spasms. Self said he was ok and it just locked up on him, but given Kansas’s lack of depth up front this year, and how big Bragg is expected to be for the offense, any health news is going to cause everyone to get at least a little worried.

Lastly, Self said this to the LJW about the scrimmage they had on Saturday:

The Jayhawks on Sunday held their first scrimmage of the 2016-17 season, complete with officials, a clock and a scoreboard.

Even though Self said the team had improved from the start of practice, he was not all that impressed by his team’s performance during the scrimmage.

“It’s been better,” Self said of practice. “We scrimmaged Sunday and we did not look good at all. But it was a great teaching tape because the guys saw how poorly we executed and really how we didn’t play with near as much effort as I thought we would. We’re certainly a lot better than we looked that day, but that tape was pretty eye-opening for a lot of our guys. We did not look like a very good team in our first scrimmage.”

Anyone who is familiar with Bill Self knows the drill here. With a few exceptions, they suck and then they suck and then they suck and then they go out and compete for a national title. I don’t expect this year to be any different, but it obviously will take some time for Bragg to step into the role vacated by Perry Ellis, and it will take some time to get Josh Jackson, Lagerald Vick, and Svi Mykhailiuk used to growing into a larger role.