To the editor:

He stood before the cameras and the mikes of Thursday’s press conference with his own thousand-yard stare. Sherron Collins, the captain, mentor and friend who has always had his back, stood in front this time, for that’s where the help was needed. Young Mr. Taylor said he was sorry — for the loss of his temper, for throwing a punch, for the thoughtless posts. More than the rest, it is those posts — to thousands of newfound “friends” — that have exposed a young man bulletproof in his own self-image.

There will be a moment, away from the heat of the lights and the cicada-clicking of cameras, when young Mr. Taylor confronts all of this by himself. He will see that the standing handed him on his arrival and carried so casually since has been lost — and must now be earned back. He is a young man, gifted, intense and proud, and I suspect he will cry at that loss.

There will also be a moment, not far from now, when he pauses in the tunnel at Allen Fieldhouse and wonders what will happen when he runs out onto the most storied court in America. If he never before saw that moment as a high privilege, he will see it in hi-def crimson and blue that night. I will be looking for him; and I will be standing, cheering his name. He’s a kid; I think he is sorry; and he’s a Jayhawk. I hope everyone is standing with me.