Lacie Reed does her little brother’s laundry. Sure, she wants to be a good older sister, but Lacie, Burlington sophomore, isn’t exactly doing it for free.

Lacie and younger brother Tyrel have a deal.

“We trade laundry for food,” Tyrel said.

Tyrel brings his older sister a mountain of dirty of laundry, and in exchange, he takes his sister out to eat.

Older sister washes and younger brother pays. Sometimes it’s Subway, sometimes it’s Quiznos, or any other sandwich shop they haven’t tired of.

“Something fast,” Tyrel said. When you’re Tyrel Reed and you’re a freshman guard for the No. 6-ranked college basketball team, you don’t have a lot of spare time to enjoy a sit-down lunch with your older sister. Especially when your sister is a sophomore student manager for the team and holds down a schedule almost as busy as yours.

It’s not hard to tell that Tyrel and Lacie Reed are related. Tyrel, with his 6-foot-3-inch frame, towers above his sister. And you won’t mistake Lacie’s blonde hair with Tyrel’s patch of closely cropped brown hair. But put the two in the same room and people can just tell.

“I get the twin thing a lot,” Lacie said. “We have a lot of the same mannerisms.”

Walk into Allen Fieldhouse an hour before a Kansas basketball game, and you can see examples of those mannerisms.

Tyrel is the one on the floor in the No. 14 jersey, shooting jump shots, and Lacie is the one sitting on the sideline, supervising the game’s ball boys.

“I do behind-the-scenes type of stuff,” Lacie said.

But spending time in the gym together is nothing new for the Reed siblings. They’ve been doing it their whole lives. The ball, the basket, the wood floor — that’s just who the Reeds are.

It’s not that Tyrel and Lacie have trouble remembering their childhoods. That’s easy. But ask them about the memories that don’t involve a round leather ball and an iron rim, and it gets a little tougher.

“It seems to always come back to basketball,” Tyrel said.

Growing up in Eureka, the daily routine was pretty simple. Go to the elementary school where their mother, Debbie, taught; hang out in the gym after school and play basketball; then, head to the Eureka High School team’s practice where their dad, Stacy, coached.

Stacy Reed coached at Eureka High School for 14 years and at nearly every practice, Tyrel and Lacie occupied the sideline.

“You know as a coach that you’re not going to have as much home time during the season,” Stacy Reed said. “So that time in the gym had to make up for that.”

Sometimes the Reeds would take a break from watching practice and play one-on-one.

“Third and fourth grade it was very competitive, because I was still taller than he was,” Lacie said.

Tyrel then hit a growth spurt during the fifth grade.

“Then it wasn’t as fun to play,” she said.

If there’s one place Tyrel pays the price for having his sister as a team manager, it’s at practice. His teammates, well, they can’t help themselves.

“We always joke with him,” freshman center Cole Aldrich said. “‘Tyrel, where’s your sister at?’”

If Aldrich is comfortable making jokes at Tyrel’s expense, it may be because he knows him so well.

Aldrich is Tyrel’s roommate, and he’s seen a different side of fellow freshman — the side most people don’t see.

Most people know the quiet Reed, the polite Reed, the determined gym rat who’s dedicated his life to basketball.

But Aldrich said Reed had another side.

“He’s like a little kid who once in awhile has too much sugar,” Aldrich said. “I’ll be like, ‘Tyrel, just calm down, I’m going to bed pretty soon—just mellow out.’”

That side of Reed didn’t always show up when the Reeds were growing up in Eureka, or when the family moved to Burlington before Tyrel entered high school, Stacy Reed said.

“Tyrel is more of an introvert,” Stacy said.

Tyrel did most of his talking on the basketball court. With Stacy coaching and Tyrel playing, Burlington High School won the 3A State basketball championship in 2004.

Tyrel, a four-year letter winner, showed all the hallmarks of a coach’s son.

“They’re just around it so much, they get a better feel for the game,” Stacy said. “Tyrel kind of took the ball and ran with it.”

Lacie graduated from Burlington High School in 2006. While Lacie went to the University and began work volunteering as a basketball manager, Tyrel was still deciding on what college to attend.

Lacie said she didn’t want her new job to affect Tyrel’s decision.

But Stacy said it might have anyway.

“I think it’s one of the things that made Tyrel pick KU,” Stacy said. “Not only his love for KU, but being close with family.”

Lacie sat under the basket in her usual spot as Kansas played Eastern Washington on Dec. 5, watching as a play developed. Tyrel came towards her basket, jumped — and landed awkwardly on his left ankle.

“He fell right in front of me,” Lacie said. “I expected him to get up right away, and he didn’t.”

Tyrel, who rolled his right ankle a week before against Arizona, had sprained his left ankle.

“I thought, ‘Oh gosh, another ankle,’” Lacie said.

The season hasn’t gone exactly how Tyrel envisioned. Tyrel, the 2007 Gatorade High School Player of the Year in Kansas, said he didn’t have any expectations about playing time. He saw Russell Robinson, Mario Chalmers and Sherron Collins, the talented threesome of guards ahead of him.

But the ankle problems — that was something different.

“It was kind of demoralizing,” Tyrel said. “You just want to play so bad, and then you can’t.”

Reed couldn’t jump, cut or play at the speed he was accustomed to.

It was a feeling Lacie could relate to.

Growing up, Tyrel wasn’t the only basketball standout in the family. Lacie could play a little bit, too.

“I don’t know many people that could beat Lacie in a game of horse,” Stacey Reed said.

But when Lacie was in sixth grade, her basketball career came to a temporary halt when she dislocated her left knee. One year later, she had knee surgery.

By the time Lacie was done playing basketball, she had dislocated her left knee 14 times and her right knee four times.

“I tore everything except my ACL,” Lacie said.

Lacie’s knee injuries were a constant source of frustration, but Lacie still played, if for no other reason than that playing basketball is what Reeds do. Even if that meant just standing around the three-point line and calling for the ball.

“I would say I loved basketball, maybe just not as much as he did,” Lacie said, looking at Tyrel.

Tyrel’s injuries — and the guards ahead of him — have cut into Reed’s playing time

He’s playing only 7.3 minutes per game, and in nine games this season, he hasn’t played a minute.

“I’ve still been able to practice,” Tyrel said.

Practices for Reed have meant daily matchups with Robinson, Chalmers and Collins. Reed normally has the honor of guarding one of them.

“At different times, they can teach you different things about the game, because they’re all so different,” Tyrel said. “I think even when you’re not playing and you’re injured, you can still develop by just watching the game and seeing it played at the college level.”

Lacie still gets the same reaction when she tells people she’s from Burlington.

“They’re like, ‘Burlington, Kansas? That kid that plays basketball, he’s from there,’” Lacie said. “I’ll say, ‘Yeah, that’s my brother.’”

It’s not a bad thing, Lacie says.

“With some people you might think they’d have jealousy,” Stacy Reed said, “but Lacie never did.”

For Lacie and Tyrel, the town and the routine may have changed, but some things don’t change.

Lacie washes the clothes; Tyrel buys the food. Tyrel is in the spotlight; Lacie is behind the scenes.

“Our family loves basketball,” Lacie said. “It’s just a part of our life.”

—Edited by Matt Hirschfeld