Print edition: 
LAWRENCE — No competitor likes to sit and watch. But at different points in their college careers Travis Releford and Jeff Withey did just that.
They ached to play but sat and observed great Kansas teams do their thing.
This Kansas squad, which takes on Iowa State at 3 p.m. today, is the beneficiary of those learning moments.
“That whole year I sat out I was getting better,” Releford said.
Ditto for Withey, who missed a semester of action.
“It helped me a lot,” Withey said. “I matured.”
Both players are among the four first-year starters in the lineup for the 10th-ranked Jayhawks, and they’ve contributed in big ways.
Releford, a 6-foot-6 junior wing, had given Kansas defensive energy as a player battling to make the rotation in his first two playing seasons. But he’s become one of the team’s top scoring threats, averaging 17.5 points over his previous four games, including a 28-point performance at Oklahoma.
Withey, a 7-foot junior center, leads the Big 12 in blocked shots at 2.9 per game. He’s has as many as nine swats in a game, and his best scoring output of the season came against Duke, when he scored 14 points.
When the season started, inexperience was a concern for Kansas. One starter, Tyshawn Taylor, returned. The others had a combined 16 career starts. But all of the new starters were juniors.
A team of veteran nonstarters; were they good enough?
Well, Thomas Robinson has received recognition as midseason national player of the year, and Elijah Johnson has become a steady hand in the backcourt.
And with Releford and Withey, the question has been answered. Kansas can lose four starters, including two lottery picks in the Morris twins, and field what appears to be growing into a championship contending team as the Jayhawks look to build on their 13-3, 3-0 league records today.
“We’re playing more to our age now than what we were earlier,” coach Bill Self said. “I still don’t think we’re an experienced team. I’m not giddy about anything, but I think we are getting better and kind of growing into an identity a little more.”
The identity that’s coming into focus is a team that’s not as potent offensively as last year’s 35-3 squad but one that gets after it with a little more energy on the defensive end.
“We’re not going to play as fast as far as shooting it quick, but we can play faster off our defense,” Self said.
Releford and Withey help set the defensive tone.
“Defense is what I’m most proud of,” Withey said.
The players sat out for different reasons. Withey had transferred from his original school, Arizona, when Wildcats coach Lute Olsen retired. He never played there, but under NCAA rules still had to sit out the first semester of his second college year.
