Boot camp, Bill Self style, begins on Monday for 2025-26 KU basketball team
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Boot Camp begins Monday, launching KU's annual two-week basketball conditioning.
- Mitch Lightfoot and Darnell Jackson emphasized mental and physical readiness.
- ESPN’s Fraschilla praised KU's freshmen, calling Peterson a likely NBA lottery pick.
Former Kansas basketball forward Mitch Lightfoot, who participated in a record-setting six of coach Bill Self’s preseason boot camp conditioning programs, has offered a bit of advice to the many newcomers on the 2025-26 team.
The newest group of Jayhawks were to begin the grueling, early-morning two-week conditioning program Monday in the Jayhawks’ practice facility.
“I would say, ‘Don’t stop talking,’” the 28-year-old Lightfoot said in a phone conversation with The Star at 9 a.m. Monday in Japan (Sunday in the U.S.), where he’s playing pro ball.
“The second you stop talking and it gets quiet in the gym, there’s a lot more things Coach can come up with. Keep talking so the energy is up. If you keep the energy up, Coach has less things to be upset about,” Lightfoot added.
Boot camp, which Self has scheduled during his entire 23-year tenure at KU as well as three preseasons at Illinois, three at Tulsa and four at Oral Roberts, consists of an hour-to-90-minutes-worth of sprints, defensive slides, backboard touches and rope-jumping with no basketballs involved in any of the exercises.
It usually takes place Monday through Friday early to mid-September, then after a weekend off, the following Monday through Wednesday or Thursday.
Then the Jayhawks are rewarded a few days off before the official start of practice.
“Is it difficult? It’s a necessary evil you’ve got to get through,” said Lightfoot, who played at KU from 2016-2022. He was a member of KU’s 2022 NCAA title team. “It’s a great team-bonding experience, and once you get through the first couple days and you know what to expect, it’s not as hellish.
“The last two days are fun,” he added, sarcastically.
Usually the final day of boot camp is most difficult. Players are expected to make certain times during their many sprints.
“Be prepared. Be up in the morning. Be ready,” former KU point guard Dajuan Harris, who participated in five boot camps at KU, told The Star before the start of the 2022-23 boot camp. “It got us through our grimiest times. Waking up early … it helped us a lot. It’s what we do: compete. With coach (Self), we have to. We do it every year. It helps a lot.”
KU coach Self on Sunday — on the team’s social media X account — offered his reasons for implementing a boot camp these past many preseasons.
“I wanted to do something that wasn’t an entire fall of conditioning,” Self said. “I wanted something condensed. I wanted something that got our feet in shape, ready for practice and basically set a tone that the guys thought whatever was in front of them moving forward wasn’t going to be near as difficult because they already had been through the hardest thing.”
Past Jayhawks who made it through Self’s boot camp have often said it’s the most challenging two-week period of the school year. Players usually awaken between 5 and 6 a.m. to prepare for sessions that generally begin between 6:30 and 7.
“Kansas was a place of solace for me. There was only one thing I hated about Kansas basketball: Boot Camp. I hated Boot Camp,” former KU forward Darnell Jackson, now an assistant coach in the NBA G League, wrote in his book, “Behind the Smile.”
“I hated running — the sprints and suicides. I didn’t want to do all that running. I was lazy. I just wanted to play basketball and I didn’t think all that running would prove anything. For every sprint I missed, I had to make it up the next day, and if I didn’t finish, I had to do more sprints. I was a stubborn little (bleep) in school. I had a chip on my shoulder and a bad temper. I thought I knew it all, but reality hit fast,” added Jackson, a member of KU’s 2008 NCAA title team.
The value of boot camp, he said, showed in KU’s 75-68 victory over Memphis in overtime in the ’08 title game.
“You saw what happened, winning the national championship. Memphis was gassed,” Jackson said. “We were in way better shape. That’s one of coach Self’s biggest things. He made sure we were in shape.”
Jackson offered advice in a past interview with The Star.
“I would tell them come in mentally and physically prepared,” he said. “Try to be in the best shape possible, have your mind set on the conditioning part. The outside world doesn’t matter. It’s more about you and the team and what you can provide for the program.”
The 2025-26 Jayhawks, who practiced and played regular pickup games all of June and July while enrolled in summer school, have been practicing up to four hours a week since the start of the school year (Aug. 18) in accordance with NCAA rules.
ESPN basketball analyst Fran Fraschilla liked what he saw during a pair of practices last week.
“The freshman class is outstanding. A top three NBA pick (Darryn Peterson), a Christian Braun clone (Kohl Rosario) and three very athletic young big men (Flory Bidunga, Paul Mbiya, Bryson Tiller),” Fraschilla wrote on X.
“Tiller will be terrific, but (Samis) Calderon is a steal. At least four future NBA players — in time.”
Fraschilla added on X: “Flory is better, more powerful and more confident. … Need two good role players to emerge from (Elmarko) Jackson, (Melvin) Council Jr. and (Jayden) Dawson.”
Fraschilla said he would be “surprised if Peterson is not a 1st Team AA,” and added that, “the Jayhawks will be under-ranked.”
Peterson, a 6-6 freshman guard from Canton, Ohio, “hit EIGHT straight 3s, some highly contested, in an intrasquad scrimmage,” Fraschilla wrote on X. “In addition to having an incredible feel and IQ for the game, THAT was ridiculous.”
