KU freshman Gradey Dick scores 20 points in exhibition debut, figures to start vs. Omaha
Kansas basketball coach Bill Self obviously is free to change his mind prior to handing the head-coaching reins to long-time assistant Norm Roberts after practice on Sunday.
As of now, however, Self is leaning to going with a different starting lineup in the regular-season opener against Omaha (7 p.m., Monday, Allen Fieldhouse) than the one he used in Thursday night’s 94-63 exhibition victory over Pittsburg State.
In that practice game, KU opened with junior point guard Dajuan Harris and junior forward Jalen Wilson, two starters off the 2021-22 NCAA title team as well as senior guard Kevin McCullar, a transfer from Texas Tech, sophomore forward KJ Adams and freshman center Ernest Udeh.
“Yeah I’m sure,” KU coach Self said of starting freshman wing Gradey Dick against the Mavericks on Monday.
Dick, a 6-foot-8, 205-pound newcomer from Wichita, scored 20 points on 7-of-9 shooting and secured four rebounds in 23 minutes against the Gorillas. He was 3 of 5 on three-pointers and 3 of 3 from the free-throw line.
“What we saw tonight is we are much better playing small than we are playing big,” Self said. “We haven’t even practiced with KJ at the 5 this year because we want one of those bigs to come through. So, we need to do that in the next two days of practice we have. We only have Saturday and Sunday left. We need to get KJ some reps at the 5 and go from there,” Self added of 6-7, 225-pound Adams.
Self, who along with assistant coach Kurtis Townsend will begin serving four-game suspensions on Monday, is allowed to run practice the next couple weeks, just not be involved with the team on game day.
“I thought Gradey was great tonight. Gradey is a starter here. We just didn’t start him tonight,” Self said Thursday in his postgame interview with Greg Gurley which was broadcast on the Jayhawk radio network.
“The thing about it is with Gradey, there’s no assist on that category (on stat sheet),” Self added of Dick failing to record an assist on a night Harris picked up 10 assists and backup point guard Bobby Pettiford five assists.
“People are going to guard him (Dick), and he has got to be able to pass the ball to the guy that is basically coming to help,” Self added. “We have to get better at that. Jalen (Wilson, 23 points, 10 the second half) I thought in the second half was great. I didn’t think Dajuan had a great game, but he still got 10 assists. I thought KJ (four points, two steals, two assists) also had a good game. Bigs were bad the first half, but obviously played a lot better the second half,” Self noted.
Newcomer McCullar had five steals in 23 minutes in his KU debut. He also scored 13 points on 6-of-12 shooting with three assists and three boards.
“I thought his hands were good. Kevin has good hands and a lot of those steals you are not going to get against some different ballclubs, but he’s got good hands,” Self said. “I thought he looked fast. In transition he pitched ahead and looked fast. I thought he did a really nice job. I thought he had a really good game,” Self added.
Sophomore guard Pettiford, who has recovered from an abdominal strain that hampered him last season into this preseason, had four steals to go with his five assists in 15 minutes. He also had two points on just one shot.
“I thought that off the bench other than Gradey, Bobby was the best player we had off the bench tonight, without question,” Self said.
Self did note that, “On our last turnover we told him (Pettiford) to throw it to Dillon (Wilhite, walk-on big man). I felt bad about Dillon. I’m watching the game and (an assistant) coach asks me if we want to put Dillon in and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t even realize (he hadn’t been in) because I wasn’t used to him suiting up for us since he didn’t last year (as redshirt).’
“He should have played a little more. We tried to throw it to him and Bobby threw it away there at the end,” Self added.
Wilhite. 6-9, 240 from San Diego, wound up grabbing a rebound in 41 seconds. Also walk-on Michael Jankovich drilled a three-pointer in seven minutes of action.
Of the game, Self said: “If you had said the score is going to be 12-0, you would hope the home team would have an advantage, but we didn’t tonight. We were so bad early,” Self said of the Jayhawks who trailed 12-0 and 21-6 to former KU guard Jeff Boschee’s Gorillas.
“Then, of course, they made everything they took early, but still a lot of that was our mistakes. I actually thought we played a little selfish. The ball stuck early. We actually executed very well the last 30 minutes of the game. I thought to start the second half the ball really moved and we got great shots. We were more patient even though we played faster,” Self added. “That (first-half) press that we worked on for all of about 15 minutes I thought really paid off early on, but there were some good things that happened. We knocked a lot of rust off, I hope. We got a face slap and got punched in the face early on, which will happen again. The guys did a pretty good job. Of course, they (Gorillas) threw in some hard shot threes (13 of 32 to KU’s 8 of 20). They did a good job of making some hard threes.”
This story was originally published November 4, 2022 at 7:32 PM with the headline "KU freshman Gradey Dick scores 20 points in exhibition debut, figures to start vs. Omaha."
