KU forward Mitch Lightfoot will redshirt this season, Self says
Kansas senior forward Mitch Lightfoot will redshirt the 2019-20 basketball season, coach Bill Self said Saturday.
Lightfoot, a 6-foot-8 senior from Gilbert, Arizona, will practice but not play in games this season. If he doesn’t appear in a game this season, he will have a final year of eligibility for 2020-21.
“Mitch and I visited on Friday and he’s 100% on board of redshirting this year,” KU coach Bill Self said Saturday. “Now you just hope everybody stays healthy. You don’t want to have him come out of one later on.”
KU currently has three healthy big men in Udoka Azubuike, David McCormack and Silvio De Sousa.
“Mitch will do what’s best for the program,” Self said. “He will play a huge role in our success because he is a big guy on the other squad (scout team) the guys have to guard away from the basket. It’ll be good practice for him to develop his game and good for us too.
“This was Mitch’s idea. I totally support it and believe it’s in everyone’s best interests.”
Lightfoot averaged 2.4 points and 2.9 rebounds in 34 games a season ago. He scored nine points on 4-of-6 shooting (1 of 2 threes) in Thursday’s second and final exhibition game — an 102-42 rout of Pittsburg State at Allen Fieldhouse. He had seven points on 3-of-4 shooting in an 86-56 win over Fort Hays State on Oct. 24 at Allen.
“As a matter of fact we were going to redshirt Mitch last year. It would have been the year to do it if we had all our pieces. Obviously we were two (players) down,” Self said.
De Sousa missed the season because of an NCAA eligibility issue, while Azubuike played in just nine games because of injury.
“Hopefully we can stay healthy (because) this will be the best for our team and best for him (Lightfoot),” Self said.
Lightfoot will travel with the team to road games this season, Self said.
Self said senior guard Isaiah Moss practiced about 30 minutes on Saturday morning and is questionable for Tuesday’s regular-season opener against Duke at 6 p.m. in New York’s Madison Square Garden.
“If he’s not full speed tomorrow, which he won’t be, I’m definitely going to hold him out,” Self said of Moss, a graduate transfer from Iowa.
Moss scored three points on 1-of-4 three-point shooting against Pitt State. He played five minutes the first half and did not enter the final half.
Self assessed KU’s play during the exhibition season Saturday. KU beat Fort Hays State by 30 points and Pittsburg State by 60.
“I think we did fine,” Self said as the Jayhawk radio network’s halftime guest at the KU-KSU football game. “The second game I thought we moved the ball better. I thought we played through our bigs better. We took care of the ball (four turnovers all game). There wasn’t a lot of pressure but even when we play 5 on 0 at practice we’ll turn it over more than four times. The key for us is if we can knock down open threes. We’ve been a little bit above average on that.”
KU hit 17 of 38 threes against Pitt State and 11 of 33 against Fort Hays State.
This story was originally published November 2, 2019 at 4:48 PM with the headline "KU forward Mitch Lightfoot will redshirt this season, Self says."
