Column: Graceful Mykhailiuk plays older than his age

Kansas University freshman Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk gets set to drive the lane against Rider, Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, at Allen Fieldhouse.

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Sharp mind, meet your perfect match:

The first time Bob Dylan took pen to paper to write lyrics. Bill Gates’ introduction to a computer. Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk playing his initial game of five-on-five.

Mykhailiuk for long, Svi for short, plays with the sophistication of a man twice his age, which isn’t all that old given that he’s only 17.

Some basketball players, especially when playing in a league new to them, try to remember what to do. The teenager from Ukraine plays as if he were born knowing.

His dunks don’t break decibel records and he hasn’t yet caught fire from three, but the way he moves, the rotation on his shots, the radar that makes him pass the ball where it needs to go. That’s all there and he’s putting it together rapidly, making the imagination sprint to wild places when contemplating how good he’ll be by the time he’s an experienced college basketball player. You know, when he’s 18.

He didn’t need much help in turning a 16-point lead into a into a 26-point game in a span of 3:10. He scored 10 points during that 12-2 stretch.

He hit a three from the right wing and then came his most entertaining play. His three-point attempt hit the back of the rim. He hustled after his own rebound, took it off the floor and as he was stumbling out of bounds, fired a pass back to Frank Mason on the perimeter. Mykhailiuk quietly picked himself up, stood behind Rider’s zone and let Mason know with his eyes that an easy bucket was available. Mason lobbed it up there for him and the freshman caught it in mid-air and angled his body for an easy layup.

The next possession after an explosive dunk from Perry Ellis, Mason took to the hoop in transition and his driving attempt fell off to the opposite side of the hoop. Mykhailiuk skied above a red jersey for the put-back. Svi buried another three-pointer and the same crowd that earlier in the half was going nuts over Cliff Alexander’s 9-0 run was showering its love on Mykhailiuk. He didn’t score again and finished with 10 points, five rebounds and two assists in 23 minutes.

When Svi moves, he does so with the grace of a much smaller man. Same for when he busts a dribble move. When he shoots a 20-footer he looks as if he’s standing 10 feet from the hoop. When he’s executing a put-back, he looks his height.

Kansas coach Bill Self even appreciates the way Mykhailiuk doesn’t make plays because of how decisively he does it.

“Svi is a really good ball mover,” Self said. “He can be a ball mover and a great shooter, too, and he’s going to be a great shooter. He just hasn’t gotten on a roll yet. But I think that Svi probably understands better than anybody, maybe because of playing European ball, that if you can’t do anything with the ball when you catch it, it needs to move, and he is the best we have at doing that.”

It took courage for Mykhailiuk to leave home at such a tender age and blend into a team with so much talent. He did it because he knows exactly what he wants to do in his career. He’ll make millions stacked upon millions doing it. He’s already enjoying it without a paycheck, already smoothly fitting into a new team.