Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Travis Releford sightings have been scarce this summer at the Releford household in Kansas City, Mo.
Releford, an incoming freshman on the Kansas basketball team and one of seven newcomers to the program, settled into the Jayhawker Towers in June, enrolled in summer classes and started preparing for his first season of college basketball. Releford’s younger brother, Trevor, has hardly seen him since.
Of course, that’s partly because Releford spent the last three weeks playing for USA Basketball at the 2008 FIBA Americas Under 18 Championship in Formosa, Argentina. The U.S. won the silver medal.
Let’s see: 18 years old, athletically gifted and traveling in Argentina. Sounds like a pretty nice way to spend the summer, huh? But according to Trevor, going to Argentina wasn’t the real thrill.
Kansas signee Travis Releford takes in the Kansas-Nebraska game on Saturday, Jan. 26 at Allen Fieldhouse. Releford, who signed with Kansas in November, has been a regular spectator at games this season.
“He’s played in China and Germany before,” Trevor said, so big brother wasn’t easily awed by international travel.
No, the real joy came from surviving the team’s tryout camp in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. Releford proved himself against some of the best young players in the country.
“He made it over Lance Stephenson,” Trevor said. “So he was real excited about that.”
For the uninitiated, Stephenson is one of the top high school players in the 2009 recruiting class.
Releford and his teammates won their first four games at the championships, advancing to the gold medal game. But they had to settle for silver after losing 77-64 to Argentina in the final. Releford scored 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting against Argentina, and averaged 7.2 points per game during the tournament.
Releford returns home this week, but Trevor still might not be seeing much of his older brother. Growing up in Kansas City, it didn’t take much for Releford to say no to a list of schools that included Missouri and Oklahoma amongst others.
Releford’s mother, Venita Vann, said Releford leaned toward Kansas.
“There were other choices, but he was going to go with KU all the way,” Venita Vann said in January while watching her son finish up his high school career at Bishop Miege in Kansas City.
And thanks to the departure of five Kansas guards from last year’s team — Russell Robinson, Brandon Rush, Mario Chalmers and Roderick Stewart — Releford, a 6-foot-5 guard, should get ample opportunity for playing time this season.
So if the Releford family wants to see Travis this winter, the best place to do it might be on the floor of Allen Fieldhouse.
— Edited by Matt Hirschfeld
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