KU Jayhawks freshman Bryce Thompson returns to practice. Will he play vs. ISU?
Kansas freshman reserve combo guard Bryce Thompson returned to practice “full speed” on Tuesday, and could return to game action when the Jayhawks face Iowa State twice this week.
KU plays the Cyclones in Allen Fieldhouse at 6 p.m. Thursday, then 2 p.m. Saturday in Ames.
“I think it’s going to be sooner rather than later when he gets back,” Self said Wednesday. ”We’ll see how he does. If he’s able to get through practice and have confidence I would anticipate there’s a chance he’ll play this weekend. I don’t know if it’ll be Thursday or Saturday we’ll just have to wait and see.”
On his weekly Hawk Talk radio show Tuesday, Self said: “I don’t know that this will be the case but I’m hopeful Bryce will be back. I’m hopeful we can get him in there. He’ll give us some good minutes and he’ll take some pressure off Marcus (Garrett) as well as far as having to dribble it up every time and initiate.”
Thompson, 6-5, 190 pounds from Tulsa, Oklahoma, had surgery on Jan. 14 to repair what Self called a “spiral fracture” in Thompson’s right index finger. Thompson suffered the fracture with 2 minutes, 12 seconds to play in KU’s 75-70 loss to Oklahoma State on Jan. 12 in Stillwater, Oklahoma. He leaped onto the Gallagher-Iba Arena floor for a loose ball, then was jarred when 6-foot-10, 240-pound Bernard Kouma of Oklahoma State fell on him. Thompson came up from the pileup on the court in great pain, holding his right hand. He had two points and two rebounds in 13 minutes that night.
He’s missed the past seven games, the Jayhawks winning just three.
Thompson also suffered a cracked vertebrae in his back at practice that forced him to miss a home loss to Texas, home win over Oklahoma and win at TCU. Prior to that, he’d played 14 and 10 minutes respectively in his first two Big 12 games — a win at Texas Tech and home win over West Virginia.
“It’s been tough but he can finish strong. I met with him today and we talked about that,” Self said. “He has anywhere between 8, 14, 15 games (left to play in this season) depending how things go. He’s played in 10 now. He still has a chance to have maybe 60% of a season left.
“I hope he’s healthy enough he can contribute and play well because we need him to. We need him out there to buy some time and also to contribute to us being better. He’s quick, a good athlete, can handle the ball, is a good passer. As he feels more comfortable he’ll knock down shots.”
Thompson, a McDonald’s All-American out of Tulsa’s Booker T. Washington High School, has averaged 5.1 points and 1.3 rebounds a game in 10 games. He has connected on 18 of 51 shots for 35.3%. He’s made just 5 of 20 threes, with 10 assists, 12 turnovers and six steals. Overall, he’s totaled 17.1 minutes a game in 10 games.
“They (doctors, including a hand specialist) all conferred and looked at everything, tested him out,” Self said. “It’s stable where he can go. It’s another thing to be stable where he can go and be confident he can go as opposed to being worried that it doesn’t feel right so therefore you can’t have total range of motion because you are nervous it’s going to hurt.
“That’s the way anybody is. When it hurts or is uncomfortable to do something you try to keep from doing it,” Self noted. “Your right hand is pretty important when you are a right-handed basketball player. He’s getting better daily.”
Thompson was able to run sprints while waiting for his hand to heal.
“I think it’s safe to assume his conditioning is not awful,” Self said. “There’s a big difference him running on the side to doing that,” he added of playing in a game. “He’s only been out there in competitive action basically once, that’s today. And that was a short practice.
“He does extra running on his own, works out on his own, does all this stuff (as far as) individual improvement. It’s a totally different deal being in game shape. Bryce is a well-conditioned guy. I don’t think he’ll be able to play 10 minutes at a time. I do think he’s certainly in good enough shape to give us substantial minutes.”
KU’s bench players combined for two points, three rebounds and one assist in Monday’s 78-66 win over Oklahoma State at Allen Fieldhouse.
“I will say I thought Mitch (Lightfoot) gave us some good minutes. He didn’t get a chance to play as much because David got going,” Self said of David McCormack, who scored 23 points and secured 10 rebounds in 29 minutes. Backup big Lightfoot had two boards in nine minutes.
“When Oklahoma State went small the first half we decided to go small. That took some minutes away from Mitch, Tristan (Enaruna, 10 minutes) and Dajuan (Harris, 3 minutes). To me they both can give us some better minutes even though I thought Tristan did a couple good things, but still not what we need. We need to not have a dropoff when we go to our bench.
“We’d be a better team if we could play our bench more, but we’ve got to win the game. I asked our staff, ‘Do we play them (reserves) midway through the second half (Monday) to try to get guys rest?’ They said, ‘No,’ because we had a dropoff. I don’t think it should be that way. Mitch has been pretty solid. We’ve got to get the others just coming in and stabilizing us. I think Bryce will do that,” Self stated.
Self said Thompson’s progress has been hurt by “not having a summer,” because of COVID-19. Normally the Jayhawks gather in summer in June in Lawrence. They could not do that prior to this season.
“He’s still trying to please the staff, still trying to please me and still trying to figure out how to play his game while he pleases me,” Self said. “That creates some indecision. When there’s indecision he’s not playing with confidence as much. I probably didn’t roll with him as much as if we played some ‘buy games.’ We didn’t. Our schedule was hard.
“I really think Bryce would have a great chance to be playing 20, 25 minutes a game if he’d never gotten hurt. I think he’d be that. We’d see a different guy. He’d have total confidence he could play, not worry about screwing up as opposed to having a free mind and play.”
This story was originally published February 9, 2021 at 9:33 PM.
