Henry brothers blending in at KU
Rather than joining their new college teammates and attending summer school at Kansas, brothers Xavier and C.J. Henry chose to remain back home in Oklahoma City, where Xavier mended wounds from dental surgery and C.J. finished rehabilitating a foot injury he suffered the previous season at Memphis.
At Big 12 Media Day on Thursday morning, KU coach Bill Self said the brothers were quick to blend in once they arrived in Lawrence in August.
Asked what their biggest adjustment was to spending the summer away from their new team, Self said, “I think the biggest thing was just being a teammate. Hey, our guys bought into them the first day they walked on campus. These are real quality kids. They’ve done a real good job fitting in.”
Xavier is a swingman and one of the nation’s most heralded incoming freshmen this season. C.J. is a former pro baseball player and will be a redshirt freshman walk-on guard with the Jayhawks. His college education is being paid for by the New York Yankees, who signed him out of high school in the first round of the 2005 amateur draft.
Self acknowledged several KU players wondered why the Henry brothers didn’t arrive on campus in June.
“No doubt they said, ‘Hey, why aren’t X and C.J. here?’ ” Self said, “but they didn’t hold it against them. I will tell you this, they (KU players) were all looking forward to them getting back here. They were all, ‘Hey, I can’t wait to see these guys in pickup games’ or whatever, which is good. That’s the way it should be from a competition standpoint.
“I told Xavier and C.J., ‘Just so you know, there’s going to some guys lined up to try and guard you when you get here.’ And I think they held their own.”
Self said C.J. has been slowed by various injuries.
“He just gets nicked up,” Self said, “whether it be a knee, an ankle, a hyper-extended elbow, but it’s nothing serious.”
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