Thursday, August 28, 2008
Cole Aldrich grew up about six hours south of Canada in Bloomington, Minn.
He traveled to northern Minnesota a few times over the years and came as close as 15 minutes away from the Canadian border. But he never ventured across it. He never had any reason to.
That’s going to change this weekend when the sophomore center and his teammates travel to Ottawa, Ontario, to play three exhibition games against Canadian universities. Kansas will play against McGill University and Carleton University on Saturday and the University of Ottawa on Sunday.
“It’s going to be exciting,” Aldrich said. “We’re really trying to work on practice. We’ve got such a young team. We’re trying to get a lot of things in before the season starts.”
Practice. That’s the buzz-word surrounding the Jayhawks’ trek to the Great White North. Kansas coach Bill Self and his players have stressed that their trip to the land of maple leaves and “Terrance and Phillip” isn’t going to be treated the same way a regular season road game would be treated.
Self knows his team is young. He expects them to make mistakes. But he also expects the three games and the week of practice leading up to them to help eliminate those same mistakes when the season rolls around in three months.
“If we take advantage of these eight days, I think that could help us a lot come December,” Self said. “I don’t want to wear our guys out by any means, but on the flip side, we’ve got to get a baseline on how we’re going to play.”
It would appear that Self also needs to get an idea of who is going to play. All the starters from last year’s national championship team are gone. These games in Ottawa could serve as the perfect opportunity to tinker with lineup combinations for Self. Then he might have a better idea of potential starters come November. Right? That’s not the way Self is looking at it.
“I could care less,” Self said. “I don’t even care to have a mindset of ‘hey, this will be our best lineup’ at all.”
A few key players might not participate in the exhibition games. Junior guard Sherron Collins, the only player on the roster with starting experience at Kansas, hasn’t practiced since the team began Thursday because he’s not in good enough shape.
Self was unsure if Collins would be able to play in Ottawa. The NCAA hasn’t ruled incoming freshmen Marcus and Markieff Morris academically eligible yet. Unless the Morris twins are cleared in the next two days, they won’t play either.
Even without them, five newcomers will make their first official appearances as Jayhawks. Junior college transfers Mario Little and Tyrone Appleton should receive significant minutes in the frontcourt. Fellow guard Tyshawn Taylor, who scored 47 points and recorded 17 rebounds in one amateur league game this summer, will try to continue on his impressive summer.
Kansas City native Travis Releford will play in his first game since competing for Team U.S.A. in the FIBA Americas Under 18 Tournament this summer. Freshman forward Quintrell Thomas will be the only scholarship player down low, other than Aldrich, if the Morris twins don’t qualify in time.
Teams are only allowed to travel to Canada for exhibition games once every four years. Self said he was glad Kansas could go this year because of how inexperienced its roster is.
“I think this is the best time we could possibly do this,” Self said.
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