Last Friday may have been the first time we got to see star freshman Tyran Stokes play in a Kansas uniform, but Wednesday’s battle with Louisville was our first true look at him.
And it came with a mixed bag of good and bad moments.
He finished with 15 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists in 31 minutes, but also shot just 3-of-13 from the floor, turned it over 3 times and looked exhausted at times, both physically and mentally.
The good news about the bad is that they seem easily fixed with just a few more games of experience and some understanding of what it takes to play at this level.
The good news about the good is that, even on an off night in terms of his offensive efficiency and effectiveness, Stokes still found a way to impact that game and was a handful for the 11th-ranked Cardinals to deal with in their 89-83 exhibition win over No. 17 Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse.
Let’s dive in.
What Was It
In every way, this was Tyran Stokes' true "Welcome to college basketball" experience, and the Cardinals made sure it wasn't a comfortable one.
He shot just 3-of-13 from the floor, including an 0-for-3 clip from 3-point range, and struggled to get past Louisville's big bodies on his way to the rim throughout the night.
He kept going. And he did get to the free throw line 14 times, where he made 9 of them, with KU coach Bill Self noting afterward that it should've been 12 makes. So, he left three points on the table there in the eyes of his head coach, but he probably left a lot more because of the way he continued to attack.
Don't get me wrong, being aggressive is a great trait and something that helps Stokes be who he is. But there are times — and he'll learn this — when being aggressive isn't the move and finding a way to get others more involved is.
"I think when the ball comes to him, it sticks some," Self said after the game. "And we need to get where it's (more) free-flowing."
Because the Big 12 Conference is loaded with size and elite teams and because KU's schedule is as tough as ever, Stokes is going to see more of this throughout the season. So, this isn't some kind of, welllll he'll only face a few teams like that type of deal.
He's going to see a lot of teams like that. And he's going to have the attention of all of them.
How Did It Happen
This is a loaded question and it has a bunch of different answers. The two biggest, though, have to do with timing and the opponent.
For all intents and purposes, this was Stokes' first college game. And he played one hell of a front line in that game. Yes, he had a chance to get his feet wet in KU's exhibition opener against Pitt State, but the Gorillas didn't have the bodies, the size or the physicality that Louisville did, and, beyond that, Self said Stokes was merely "average" in the Pitt State win.
So, for a while here, everything he sees is going to be something he's seeing for the first time. Bigger bodies. How opponents scout and guard him. How exhausting it can be to try to battle for 40 minutes at this level. And that's to say nothing about the mental fatigue that comes from trying to execute the right things at a fast pace in a game that's moving faster than any you've ever seen.
So, to some degree, this was to be expected. Just as it would have been for any freshman in that situation, especially one who stands 6-8, 240 pounds and is going to have to face opposing bigs on both ends of the floor.
Here's the other reason this was such a tough outing for Stokes – the Cardinals have a ridiculously good front line, anchored by former Jayhawk Flory Bidunga, who has three years of college basketball experience and has done battle in the Big 12 plenty of times before.
While there was no way Flory was going to let the freshman who essentially replaced him at KU go off on him, he also had help.
The Cardinals played three guys 20 minutes apiece or more who stand taller than Stokes — Bidunga (6-9), Alvaro Folguerias (6-10) and Nigerian freshman Obinna Ekezie Jr. (7-2). Beyond that, they had two others who are roughly his same size, in Karter Knox (6-6) and LJ Wells (6-8), combine for another 20 minutes together.
While they didn't all get a crack to guard him one-on-one for repeated possessions, a few of them were out there together and that meant it was more than just Stokes trying to score against his man, who was slightly bigger, it also meant he was trying to find room among a group of players who were all bigger than him.
Again, that's going to happen. And he'll be coached and learn for himself how to figure out a way to work around it and play in the face of it. But for a first time, on a stage like this, with the added intensity of Bidunga's return to KU and his status as the top freshman in all of college basketball, this was a big-time first test and one that not many people would have excelled in taking.
Stokes competed. And he had his moments and found ways to work through it more and more as the game went on. That, as much as anything, was the biggest takeaway for me from this one.
What Does It Mean
Long story short, it means Stokes has more information now, and that should be viewed as a good thing.
Not only does he know what it feels like and what it takes to face teams at this level with that kind of size, he also knows what worked at times and what didn't at others.
And, with the help of his KU coaches and the game film, he'll have the advantage of being able to watch it and relive it as often as he'd like to make sure that what he experienced does go down as a learning lesson for him, one that he can store away in his mind and use to his advantage down the road.
It might take a couple weeks — maybe longer — for him to fully feel comfortable and like he's ready to rock at this level. But I don't have any doubts that he'll get there because of what Self has already said about him repeatedly – he wants to be coached hard and he wants to be great.
Stokes had some bright moments in Wednesday's game. And a few bonehead moments, too.
Just look at the end of the game, when he threw a lazy, one-handed hook pass that got picked off on one key possession and then missed a layup on another and was still so focused on and frustrated by missing the layup that he committed a key foul instead of just getting back on defense and moving on to the next play.
Those little things are things you can't fully embrace until you go through them. He has now, and he'll be better for it, perhaps even as soon as Sunday.
What's more, he also learned in this one that what has been working for him his entire basketball playing life might not quite work at this level. He's not able to bully and body guys like Bidunga and Ekezie Jr. the way he bullied and bodied guys in high school, middle school and even on the ultra-talented AAU scene.
These are grown men and damn good players at that. So, he'll have to adjust and tweak his game to find new ways to get by guys or go around them or even pull up over them. And he will. Because he has crazy talent and he cares deeply.
You can bet he's already brainstorming ideas and replaying Wednesday's game in his mind, and, while he certainly wasn't amazing in his first outing against a damn good college team, that's all you can ask for from a kid who's learning on the fly.
Watch the progress from here; I'd be very surprised if you don't see him utilize some of those lessons and tweaks to his game sooner rather than later.
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