photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas center Udoka Azubuike (35) pulls a rebound from Duke forward Amile Jefferson (21) during the second half of the Champions Classic on Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016 at Madison Square Garden in New York. At left is Kansas guard Lagerald Vick (2).

With senior big man Landen Lucas struggling so far this season, to the tune of 13 points, 8 rebounds and 9 fouls in just 49 minutes in KU’s first two games, the natural tendency of the KU fan base is to look to the bench to see who might be able to do better.

Add to that the fact that freshman center Udoka Azubuike was one of the top performers and a key part of KU’s Champions Classic win over No. 1 Duke on Tuesday night and the looks from the fans start to become less exploratory and more insistent.

Two games in to this 2016-17 season –and Azubuike’s college career — I already have heard all kinds of people ask if Azubuike should be starting in Lucas’ spot.

I don’t blame them for the inquiry. Azubuike has a ton of potential and his style of play is exciting. Beyond that, fans are gonna fan. But that’s why they’re fans and not head coaches making millions of dollars per year to run the program.

The man in charge of doing that, KU’s Bill Self, is not anywhere near ready to sit Lucas in favor of Azubuike and it’s because there’s so much more that goes into playing that spot — or any spot — for the Jayhawks than Azubuike even knows at this point.

Factors such as conditioning, IQ, experience and others all play into how much — and how quickly — Azubuike can have handle a bigger role on this team. Lucas is a pro in all of those areas and, as we saw last season, has a way of making things better for the other four players on the floor even if his numbers aren’t jumping off the page while he’s out there.

So the right move for fans wanting to see more of Azubuike is to pull for him to develop but not at the expense of Lucas’ minutes. Lucas will be fine. And Azubuike will get better. Perhaps quickly. But the whole thing is a process and one Self is just fine with thus far.

“No, probably not ahead,” said Self
when asked if Azubuike’s early
production had surprised him. “I don’t
think he’s behind. He’s about what we
thought. I think he’s improving so
much so quickly and I think we thought
that would happen so I’d say he’s
right on schedule of what we thought
he’d be.”

One thing that could change that is if he takes his performance against Duke — 6 points, 12 rebounds in 15 minutes — and uses that to springboard his development. I asked Self the other day if he thought playing that well against a team of that caliber could end up delivering 4 or 5 games worth of confidence and experience for the freshman big man and Self supported that thought.

“I think so,” he said. “I think he
learned a lot. Conditioning’s
important and he got tired. He’s
worked his tail off conditioning, but
he’s got another step he can take
there. Offensively, all our bigs are
too slow to catch, gather and go.
They’re allowing small guys to
basically become a defender on ’em.
He’s gotta get better at that. As far
as going after balls, he may have
knocked some guys over to get ’em, but
he went after some balls the other day
that were pretty impressive.”