This is 1 thing Kansas basketball coach Bill Self knows he must focus on early this season

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Back in mid-October, during Kansas basketball’s media day in Lawrence, coach Bill Self highlighted a desire to manage the minutes a few of his veterans will play this season.

It’s not that Self won’t play graduate center Hunter Dickinson, graduate guard Dajuan Harris Jr. or senior forward KJ Adams Jr. a significant amount of minutes in close, meaningful games. It’s that he’d like the averages, which were 32.2 for Dickinson, 35.7 for Harris and 33.5 for Adams last season, to be under 30 minutes per game this season. Self thinks they’ll be a better team if that happens because more guys will be contributing and they’ll have more of a role in the Jayhawks’ success.

Fast forward to later that month, at Big 12 Conference media days in Kansas City, Missouri, and Self was sharing a similar message. But the idea came with more of an emphasis than it did the previous time he spoke on it. It also came with an acknowledgment that, despite the difficulty of the non-conference schedule Kansas will play, he needs to stick to this strategy so the Jayhawks’ depth is set up well for later in the season.

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“Sometimes when you play a hard schedule, it’s hard to play a lot of depth — especially young kids,” Self said at Big 12 media days. “But I’ve got to make myself do it. I’ve got to make (Harris) and KJ and Hunter’s numbers be under 30 to give everybody — I’ve got to do that. They’ll be better, and I think we’ll be better over time if we do that.”

The two high-profile freshmen Kansas brought in, guard Rakease Passmore and forward Flory Bidunga, are in line to help make that happen as options off of the bench. But it’s the transfers the Jayhawks have brought in who are set to be able to do more to allow this to take place. It’s not just the ones who are competing for starting roles, such as junior guard AJ Storr, senior guard Zeke Mayo or junior guard Rylan Griffen, but the likes of senior guard David Coit and graduate guard Shakeel Moore.

Cutting down on the amount of minutes Dickinson, Harris and Adams will play to the extent Self is talking about appears difficult at first glance. Even with the added depth Kansas has, it’s easier said than done. But even if all three are much closer to 30 minutes per game than they were last season, and at least one of the three dips under, that could still accomplish the goal Self is after.

After the Jayhawks open the season on Nov. 4 at home against Howard, they’ll be tested further on Nov. 8 at home against North Carolina and Nov. 12 in Atlanta against Michigan State. As the weeks progress, their non-conference slate includes a Nov. 26 game in Las Vegas against Duke, a Dec. 4 game at Creighton, a Dec. 8 game at Missouri and a Dec. 14 game at home against NC State.

If this plan is going to be successful, it should show up in enough of those matchups and more.

“I don’t know what coach’s going to do, because he might play me, may play us, again at 35 a game,” said Harris, who was happy with KU’s efforts in the transfer portal. “So, I don’t even know. I don’t like getting out of the game anyways, but it’s going to help me out because we’ve got better guards. Even though we had good guards last year, we’ve got better guards this year. So, it’s going to help me out a lot and I’ll probably play off the ball a lot, too, because we’ve got other guards that came in.”

Jordan Guskey covers the University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: 1 thing Kansas basketball coach Bill Self knows he must focus on early