KU coach Bill Self’s annual basketball Boot Camp set to begin bright and early Monday

Bill Self’s 20th-annual, two-week Kansas Basketball Boot Camp certainly will be challenging for all 17 of the Jayhawk players, who will gather between 6 and 7 a.m., Monday through Friday and at least four days the following week for hour-long. non-stop conditioning drills in the Jayhawks practice facility adjacent to Allen Fieldhouse.

Yes, the sessions traditionally have been difficult for everybody, but especially taxing for the newcomers. This year, KU has six players who have never been part of such a program on this level.

“Be prepared. Be up in the morning. Be ready,” KU redshirt junior point guard Dajuan Harris said Friday. He was asked to offer advice to KU scholarship freshmen Gradey Dick, Zuby Ejiofor, MJ Rice and Ernest Udeh and walk-on Wilder Evers. Also senior Kevin McCullar is a newcomer transfer from Texas Tech.

“Prepare. Get your sleep. Get protein,” junior guard Joseph Yesufu said, asked to provide pre-Boot Camp tips for the freshmen.

“Drink water. Take care of your body. Get some rest,” sophomore guard Bobby Pettiford advised.

Redshirt freshman Kyle Cuffe Jr., who was a spectator last year, observing from the sidelines because of injury, thinks he picked up pointers on how to survive/thrive at Self’s Boot Camp, which Self has held annually during his first 19 years at KU and also three years at Illinois, three at Tulsa and four at Oral Roberts.

“I’d say from watching it, keep your head up high, keep on pushing. Don’t ever stop. Run everywhere. When in doubt, you know you are going to finish it. You are going to feel confident at the end of it,” Cuffe stated.

Boot Camp sessions consist of a series of sprints, backboard touches and defensive slides. Most difficult are running drills in which the players run halfcourt back to the end line; 3/4 back to the end line and fullcourt back to the end line anywhere between 22 and 28 seconds. All drills are held with no basketballs in sight.

“It makes you tougher. It makes you come together as a team,” Yesufu said. “You are on your last leg, you’ve got 30 more sprints but you’ve got to find a way through it, to finish it.”

Cuffe realizes Boot Camp is difficult by design.

“Everybody is tired. Everybody’s going to be tired. You’ve got to keep sticking with it,” the 6-2 combo guard from Harlem, New York said.

“(When it’s over) we’ll have the feeling we accomplished something early in our season, our preseason, something that is going to bond us together for life,” Cuffe added.

Harris said lessons learned at Boot Camp can help get the team through difficult moments during the marathon 2022-23 season. He said he believes last year’s Boot Camp actually helped the team win the Big 12 title and NCAA crown.

“It got us through our grimiest times,” Harris said. “Waking up early … it helps us a lot. You know how that stuff goes. It’s what we do, compete. With Coach (Self) we have to. We do that every year. It helps a lot.”

Pettiford said a positive attitude is important.

“I’m going to have fun with my teammates. That’s what it’s about, having fun and being around the team,” Pettiford said.

As far as the freshmen … they’ve heard all the stories of how difficult it is to survive Boot Camp. First-year forward Udeh said he welcomes the challenge.

“I’ve always been conditioned,” the 6-11, 240-pound Udeh said. “Playing basketball you’ve got to condition, got to stay in shape.”

Udeh isn’t fearful of early wake-up calls the next couple weeks.

“When I was in high school I got up at 5 a.m.,” said Udeh, a graduate of Dr. Phillips High in Orlando, Florida. “I’ll be OK.”

Asked which of his freshman buddies he’s most looking forward to running with at Boot Camp, Udeh said with a smile: “Hard to say. Probably Gradey (Dick) just because he’s my boy. We are always goofing off, so I can’t wait to see him in that serious setting, see what happens.”

If anybody needs encouragement, Cuffe said he’s sure he and his teammates will provide it.

“I love this team. I feel we are all defense oriented. We all help each other,” Cuffe said. “We’ll pick each other up. We are always going to be there for each other no matter what, and we’re going to talk to each other and keep each other accountable at all times.”

Unofficial start to preseason coming Monday

Boot Camp is the first official team activity of the school year for the men’s basketball team. The Jayhawks were on campus in June and July for summer school, then headed home for a couple weeks before the start of the 2022-23 school year on Aug. 22.

Boot Camp will run from Monday until either Sept. 22 or 23 with the weekend off. Official preseason practices for the 2022-23 season are tentatively set to start around Sept. 28.

Late Night in the Phog will be Friday, Oct. 14 this preseason. The Jayhawks will practice several weeks with one exhibiition game set for Nov. 3 against former KU guard Jeff Boschee’s Pittsburg State Gorillas.

KU will hold its one “secret scrimmage” sometime in late October. Sources told The Star the Jayhawks will play the Illinois Fighting Illini in the secret scrimmage with the teams meeting in St. Louis for the glorified practice./scrimmage. Last year KU traveled to Tulsa to meet the Golden Hurricane in a secret scrimmage on Tulsa’s campus.

No fans or media are allowed to attend secret scrimmages.

The NCAA allows teams to either play two exhibition games before fans, one exhibition game and one secret scrimmage or no exhibition games and two secret scrimmages.