Lahaina, Hawaii ? As NBA talent evaluators, former Kansas University players Kevin Pritchard and Milt Newton cannot comment on the abilities of individual current Jayhawks.

That’s considered tampering.

They can, however, speak about KU’s squad in general. And, for the record, they both like what they saw from their alma mater while scouting the Maui Invitational.

“They are a young, talented team. Like all freshmen, those guys will take their lumps,” said Newton, director of player personnel of the Washington Wizards who attended all of the tourney games in Maui as did fellow 1988 national-champion teammate Pritchard, who has an identical title for the Portland Trail Blazers.

KU fell to Arizona, 61-49, and Arkansas, 65-64, then drilled Chaminade in the seventh-place game, 102-54, at the Maui Invitational.

“It’s always hard to take lumps,” Newton said. “To put it in the right perspective, they should be able to grow from it. The talent base is great; to watch them grow together will be fun to see.”

Pritchard, who made Lawrence his offseason home until last year and said he and his family missed the town “terribly,” said the Jayhawks “will be good this year. They have a chance to do some nice things as long as they play together, play unselfish. There’s talent. By January or February, the freshmen won’t be freshmen anymore.

“As long as guys listen, as long as guys mature, you can be good quick on the college level today as young as teams are,” Pritchard said, aware the NBA has raided lots of young players from schools.

“They have solid players at every position, youth at every position. It comes down to how well they play together, chemistry, will they accept roles?”

Newton pinpointed one area instrumental in whether KU’s team, which will take a 2-2 record into Thursday’s 8 p.m. home contest against Nevada, will progress rapidly.

“Not to put pressure on the point-guard situation,” Newton said, “(but) someone has to step up and be a calming influence. When it happens, I think the team will be that much better. The big guys are physical. They need to stay out of foul trouble.”

Happy to see the Jayhawks bounce back with a rout of Division II Chaminade, Pritchard said the squad had to return with more than delectable pineapple.

“The thing you have to take away from here,” Pritchard said, “is re-evaluate how hard you are working and what you are accomplishing. Every player saying, ‘What can I do to help the team now?’ The whole key to the NCAA is, ‘Are you making progress?’ Try to work to get better.”

Newton said he was impressed with the large contingent of KU fans watching the games in Maui.

“These are not fair-weather fans,” he said. “They know the freshmen will become sophomores, juniors. You can’t put too high of expectations on them early. Everybody knows they’ll be good.”

Or, as Pritchard said … “as players at Kansas, we never said we were rebuilding, we were reloading. That’s what they are doing now, reloading.”

Pritchard and Newton both brought their families with them for Thanksgiving week in Maui.

“Put it this way … he cried when we lost yesterday,” Pritchard said, asked if son K.J., remained a KU fan after moving to Portland.

“I’m not so sure I cried myself,” Pritchard added with a smile, admitting he’s still a big fan of his alma mater.

As far as Newton …

“All the guys here know where I went to school,” he said with a grin, pointing to NBA execs on hand for the Maui tourney. “You have to kind of hide it sometimes. I’ll always want KU to win.”