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KU Insider Henry Greenstein checks in with all the latest from Lawrence.
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00:00their sports daily insider interview on kfh
00:05and that insider our ku insider henry greenstein of the lawrence journal world also our
00:11court insider a court reporter here on sports daily kusports.com um boy i hope you like it
00:19because i sure don't uh it is if i if i see injunction or stay or appeal or appellate or
00:28like i'm gonna no no thank you no thank you i don't even think the people that cover this
00:35stuff for a living quite understand like what's next in any of this no if you're sick of it imagine
00:42how i feel i have to go to court on september 4th the day of the season opener for four
00:48to six hours
00:49and attend melbourne council's injunction hearing listen brady and i have both been there uh for
00:55in much more dire circumstances crime court which i'll tell you is significantly worse
01:02so it could be it could be worse all right but it's maybe not as boring i'll say that uh
01:10this is
01:10all so boring like i hate that we get on here every day and we have to try to catch
01:17people up on legal
01:18proceedings i'm just like like what is but it's i mean it's it's crucial stuff like every day this
01:26changes and now what we thought was going to make trey white eligible is not making him eligible
01:35anymore is he is he in any of these court cases does trey white have a court case out there
01:40not as
01:41of now and believe me i've been refreshing the douglas county court records but it'll be difficult
01:47to find out uh that he's been added to any of the numerous lawsuits around the country without the
01:54people who are doing those lawsuits telling us as much i'm i've been trying to remain as vigilant as
02:00possible but i certainly haven't seen him show up at anything yet um doesn't mean it's not going to
02:05happen of course classes at ku started yesterday so then the other element becomes all right how long
02:11do people have to conceivably enroll in some form of class to make themselves eligible to take part
02:16but yeah um as of now you know no trey white at the moment ever since the uh the ncaa
02:24got a stay on
02:25or their appeal was successful um on the wisney one so we're all waiting to see what happens with that
02:32you know at this moment i'm not aware of any ku athlete regardless of sport who has come back
02:39as a fifth year player which is a little surprising because when this first happened
02:44there were all sorts of possibilities but when something happens this late in the summer a lot
02:49of people have their plans already made um for the year ahead um and it's weird because those who don't
02:56are kind of reaping the rewards right now
03:00well yeah henry it's it's it's what was that jacob i just said we'll wait just yeah yeah i mean
03:07any moment anything can change it's just so hard to keep up with but thankfully henry better
03:14actual sports games are actually coming up that we can start talking about here soon ku football
03:22friday september 4th taking on long island university as we're getting so so much closer
03:29kind of well what's what's kind of the feel with the football program right now and i guess now that
03:34we're getting closer to actual kickoff and actual games being played you know what what are you feeling
03:40that the expectations are as far as what would be uh an okay season what would be really good i
03:47i guess
03:47kind of what what are those expectations as we're getting a couple weeks away i mean i think people
03:52just want to see ku make a bowl game um the over under that i keep hearing from everyone on
03:59all all the
04:00numerous uh preseason radio shows i've gone on where they asked me to make a prediction on the over
04:05under is five and a half wins and that that tells you this thing is on a knife's edge um
04:11and they've
04:12gotten they've had five wins the last two years and the difference in perception between a five win
04:18season and a six win season is so great um and that that to me will be the tipping point
04:23but in
04:24terms of how this is viewed by fans um as for within the program i think there's probably a cautious
04:29optimism i think i think ku thinks it's deeper at almost every position across the board but
04:36you know as i keep saying on this show like i just i i can't be fully aboard the ku
04:43as a postseason team
04:45or upper half big 12 team bandwagon until i see that they're capable of getting like replacement level
04:52quarterback play um from one of their two options of that position if they do um and combined with what
05:00andy kolmicky has in store this could be a really good offense the defense we'll see um i think that
05:09unit really needs to prove itself after last year uh you know a lot of the personnel that was not
05:16great
05:17last year is still around and hopefully for ku's sake has improved um in the offseason and then
05:26like the new people they hope has in turn pushed um the returners to become better at positions like
05:34safety and corner so we'll see i i think there's reason to think this team can make a bowl game
05:40certainly i wouldn't blame anyone for thinking that they could i just they're going to need to win
05:43some games they won't be favored in which is what happens when you have a couple of disappointing
05:47students and no one regards you as highly as they did when you were coming off back-to-back bowl
05:52appearances that's just how it goes we're going to ask we have james wesling who calls games for
05:57the big 12 on television in later today and that's one thing i do want to ask him and i
06:02i think it's
06:03unfair to us and it's unfair to you who so closely follows a specific team to try to also have
06:13to follow
06:14all the other teams in the league like that's the reality for k if i if i was trying to
06:20find optimism
06:21i would say listen everybody outside of a handful of teams we don't know anything about the other
06:29teams in this league so like the same questions we're asking about ku and like my goodness what's
06:36this going to look like they're asking in morgantown they're asking in tucson they're asking like they i
06:42don't know what those other teams have done this offseason i can't keep up with what ku's done this
06:46offseason yeah i mean well not only do i have to follow the other 15 teams in the big 12
06:52i'm an ap
06:52voter i gotta follow 138 teams or whatever it is now um right but we don't know like we don't
07:00know
07:00how good the league's gonna be no everybody has all these different players now no and that's why the
07:06big 12 did away with their preseason poll is because no one knew arizona state was going to be
07:10good in 2024 um and apparently that was such an injustice uh against my grad school alma mater that
07:18there was no need to ever have a preseason poll ever again um i mean the good thing from a
07:24ku
07:24perspective is that they don't have to play some of the teams that are thought to be the most
07:28sure things when you think about like texas tech or houston they do have byu on the schedule they get
07:34them at home um they don't have to play arizona which is a team that i'm pretty high on even
07:38though
07:38you said no one knows what's going on there i mean arizona did lose like all of the players from
07:44the their positions of strength last year but they still have no fafita who i think could potentially
07:49be the best quarterback in this league so they have that going for them and that's another team
07:53ku dodges of course as i've said like as favorable as the opponents are in the second half of the
08:02season
08:02they have to get to a point where they are like afloat by the second half of the season they
08:07cannot be
08:07two and four oh and three and big 12 play in their first six games which is like a very
08:12real
08:13possibility um even if the second half is easier and that's when they actually get to have big 12
08:19games in warrants against baylor byu and ucf like they have to be in a point where the team morale
08:24and
08:24momentum is sufficient that they can actually do something yeah that's been pretty key henry um kind
08:31of going back to predictions and kind of where expectations are as far how much runway does uh
08:39coach leipold have you know last year it's pretty disappointing season it i i guess when you look
08:45back at the hype or maybe three to four years ago when there was those expectations of maybe winning
08:50big 12 conference and those sort of things and jaylen not having the year uh last year that folks
08:56expected although it looks like he's having a pretty decent preseason with the bucks uh how how
09:01much uh runway does coach leipold have until that seats really kind of feeling warm well there are a
09:09few factors you have to take into account with this uh one of them is the fact that four coaches
09:15tried
09:16and failed spectacularly to make ku anything even remotely respectable in the 11 seasons before leipold
09:22arrives so by simply making it a team that has a chance against big 12 opponents um i think he's
09:30earned a lot of goodwill uh second thing you've got to take into account is that the athletic director
09:35travis goff just made a pretty much unsolicited like five tweet thread talking about how great
09:41leipold is last week in response to nothing in particular um and the third thing you got to take into
09:48account is like many athletic departments ku is operating on a year over year deficit and does
09:54not have the money to fire coaches willy-nilly especially those who are making uh very large
10:00sums of money each season and have significant buyouts so all of those and they're building a stadium still
10:07800 plus million dollar stadium i'm gesturing over there because that's where the stadium is um 800 plus
10:14million dollar stadium project still ongoing and even after this season um when the east side of
10:22the stadium is closer to being finished they still have to do all the mixed use development that
10:27surrounds it so they still got a ways to go and it'll be another two years before that's like fully
10:32complete i think is the vision all that is to say i don't think lance leipold can even be on
10:38anything
10:38remotely resembling a hot seat because of the the context of kansas athletics both in terms of the
10:44history of the football program and the current state macroeconomically of the kufla department
10:49i'm not saying they're broke they have a really good donor base and they can compete at a reasonable
10:55level um in basketball and all the non-revenue sports are doing really well um i'm just saying
11:02they don't have the money to fire a coach who's under a contract like leipold's and he they clearly
11:08like him based on uh travis's recent tweets that's a good point on the contract um you know you know
11:15well yeah hopefully they win enough games that we don't have to have that conversation i hate those
11:19conversations henry greenstein lawrence journal world you know we've talked a lot of football since
11:23you've hopped on the show with us over the last few weeks um find the work also at kusports.com
11:29on basketball outside of will they have trey wide or will they have melvin council let's say they
11:35don't have either of those guys where are you now basketball is different than football i feel like
11:41we have a great sense of basketball right the rosters are smaller it's a little easier to track
11:46this stuff how do you stack ku up in basketball well i mean the other hand we have a smaller
11:51roster
11:52the additions of more players can make a greater impact so we that's why we do have to care so
11:57much
11:58about uh trey and melvin at this at this late stage of the off season but i don't know um
12:04we'll find out
12:05they've got the top player in the high school class for a second straight year but it's going to be
12:09an
12:09entirely different sort of enterprise this time around because tyron stokes in terms of personality
12:13and skill set is very different than darren um i think there are a lot of things to be optimistic
12:19about with this team i think they can be a great rebounding team uh even if their centers are
12:25as kind of middling as many expect them to be they'll still be good at rebounding because they're
12:31very tall and physical that combined with having keanu dawes and tyron stokes uh in your starting
12:37lineup should make for a pretty good margin on the board so they'll create extra possessions better
12:42than last year's team did and um you know bill self has said he likes playing with two little guards
12:48well he's gonna get the chance to because their guards are little uh if they got tay kenny and
12:53leroy blind in the backcourt um they'll be fast they'll have good ball handling stokes is a great
12:59passer too there's reason to think the ball movement can be good they can play at a fast pace at
13:03the same
13:04time there's a lot of question marks they don't have none of their transfers are big name nationally
13:10prominent guys uh for when you look at these preseason rankings that guys like gary paris and john
13:16rothstein are doing dawes and blyden are not moving the needle so much um the only two returning
13:23players are cole rosario and paul ambia and neither one played a significant role last year and basically
13:28the idea that paul ambia could potentially be a starting center is predicated on 20 minutes of
13:36play time and then it's crazy i'm in on ambia i'm in on ambia i am too absolutely i will
13:43tell you it
13:44it looked very close to him not being on the team this spring when his agent was calling me to
13:49talk about how he could have gotten more money playing at other big 12 schools but ended up ended
13:54up ku regardless so here he is uh we'll we'll talk more hoops as we go along maybe next week
13:59we'll
14:00have more insight on those other two guys henry greenstein follow him at henry greenstein on x
14:05lawrence journal world kusports.com henry thank you we'll see you next wednesday as regular
14:10you
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