After not playing in the Kansas Jayhawks' first two games of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) basketball season, Ole Miss transfer and Grand Bahama native Dwight Coleby made his Jayhawk debut on Saturday in an 86-65 win over the Siena Saints.
In his first regular season game since tearing the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee last September, Coleby played just two minutes and had one rebound.
According to Kansas coach Bill Self, when asked about Coleby's status with the team earlier in the week, he said that although Dwight has been medically cleared to play, he has not shown the same explosiveness that he did prior to sitting out last season.
"There's nothing that's kept him from playing from my standpoint," he said. "We're listing him as healthy. He's practicing every day; it's just that he doesn't have the same bounce and quickness as he had last year prior to injury. He's still working on getting it back. It's not anything I've got against Dwight, but it's really not fair for him or fair for the team if he really can't move to the point that he needs to."
In a role that was originally tailored for Coleby, Self has used freshman Udoka Azubuike as the first big man off the bench.
In the preseason, Coleby totaled 20 minutes, eight points and eight rebounds in exhibition games against NCAA Division II opponents Washburn and Emporia State.
As a sophomore at Ole Miss, Coleby averaged 5.4 points, 4.8 rebounds, 0.9 blocked shots and 16.5 minutes per game. He scored in double figures six times and reached double figures in rebounds once.
Coleby arrived in the United States prior to his junior year at Piney Woods High in Mississippi. An unranked three-star recruit, he averaged 20 points, 15 rebounds, five blocks and three assists in his senior year and was ranked as the No.2 overall player in Mississippi that year by ESPN.
He elected to go to Ole Miss, but was pursued by a number of other major programs including Georgia, Memphis, Mississippi State, Southern Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgetown, Nebraska and the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).
Randy Smith, Guardian Sports Reporter
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