Kansas Jayhawks Basketball: Where is Kelly Oubre
Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks have one of the best freshman classes in the nation, boasting the likes of Cliff Alexander, Kelly Oubre Jr., Devonte Graham, and Svi Mykhailiuk. Coming into the season, many thought that Alexander and Oubre especially would see significant minutes from the start of the season because of their high school track record and their overall talent level.
Alexander has played plenty so far this season, but Oubre has struggled to even get onto the court so far this season. Through 6 regular season games, he is averaging just 7.8 minutes per game which is 10th on the Kansas Jayhawks team.
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Normally with highly touted recruits such as Oubre, fans expect that they will make a large impact right away like we see from other big-name freshman such as Duke’s Jahlil Okafor and Tyus Jones or Kentucky’s Karl-Anthony Towns. In fact, according to DraftExpress, Kelly is the 7th ranked prospect IN THE WORLD for this upcoming NBA Draft, which means that this kid should be on the court.
The weird thing about Oubre’s situation is different though. It’s not that he is struggling to make the transition to the college game, but rather that he is struggling to even get playing time in the Jayhawks rotation. It seems as if head coach Bill Self has leaned towards playing Wayne Selden, Svi Mykhailiuk, and even Branden Greene (who all play SG or SF which are Oubre’s positions that would play at Kansas) over Oubre.
So why is this? Why is Self reluctant to put Oubre in the game?Honestly, it’s a mystery and the only explanation is the fact that Kansas is a deep team at those positions. Selden is arguably the best and most talented player on the roster (Perry Ellis may have something to say about that), Mykhailiuk is simply a lot, and I mean a lot better than people thought he was going to be this year since he’s only 17 years old.
As for Branden Greene, he is a great shooter and plays mostly when Bill Self wants a quick bucket. All these guys play their roles in Self’s offense, but it seems like Oubre has been left out of the rotation all together.
Many believe that Svi Mykhailiuk just took his spot right from him. It’s that simple. He is getting more than double the minutes than Oubre is, and has been in the starting lineup as of late. He is 6’8″ and can do just about everything on the floor. He has just out-performed Oubre to this point in practice and in games.
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CBS Sports’ columnist Gary Parrish asked Kelly about his playing time in his article on cbssports.com and he said, “Yeah, I’ve gotten that a lot lately … because, you know, I’ve never been in a situation like this,” Oubre said. “I’ve always been at the top. But just keeping my confidence 100 is all I can do right now, and I’m just going to continue to do what coach needs me to do.”
Parrish also added that Oubre didn’t seem upset or frustrated during their little “talk” about his lack of playing time, which he easily could be, so Jayhawk fans shouldn’t worry about a bad reaction from him just yet.
As of now, I think that the Jayhawks look like a top-10 team the way they are playing and Bill Self is doing a great job managing players minutes and egos, so I think that he knows and does whats best for Kansas. And in this case, it involves sitting a potential NBA stud for a few guys who can contribute more to the team now.
Look for Oubre’s minutes to increase over the coming weeks because I think he is just too talented to be sitting on the bench for more than 20 minutes per game. Self will get him some more minutes in the coming games and we will see the talent and depth that Kansas has this year.