photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas forward Silvio De Sousa talks with associate athletics director for public affairs Jim Marchiony during Media Day, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2018 at Allen Fieldhouse.

Kansas basketball fans wondering about the status of sophomore forward Silvio De Sousa can expect to see the KU big man in street clothes again on Thursday night, when the Jayhawks welcome Washburn to Allen Fieldhouse for their second and final exhibition tune-up of the 2018-19 season.

KU coach Bill Self briefly addressed De Sousa during his first Hawk Talk radio show of the season on Tuesday night, saying that KU had not learned anything about De Sousa’s eligibility that would make him available for Thursday’s 7 p.m. game.

“No, unfortunately, and there’s not going to be any news, I wouldn’t think, in the immediate future,” Self said. “Without going into any details at all, I think everybody would understand (details were) very limited until the trial was officially over, and then after the trial everybody’s got to be able to put everything together and look into whatever they look into. So we’re hopeful his eligibility review is done as hastily as possible, but we also don’t know the time-frame in which that will occur.”

De Sousa did not play in KU’s exhibition opener, instead sitting on the bench in street clothes, cheering on his teammates throughout the 93-55 Kansas victory.

“Silvio’s in great spirits always,” KU forward Dedric Lawson said after last Thursday’s win. “He’s always a guy in the locker room that you can laugh at or get a joke out of. He’s a great kid.”

De Sousa, of course, is being held out of competition until Kansas gets more information on his status in the wake of the recently completed college basketball trial that led to the conviction of three men — two of them former Adidas executives and another aspiring agent — for their role in recruiting corruption.

The Angola native played an important role in helping Kansas reach the Final Four last season after joining the team for the second semester after graduating early from IMG Academy.

Although he was never accused of taking any money himself, De Sousa’s name came up throughout the trial, with his guardian, Fenny Falmagne, allegedly taking $60,000 from a Maryland booster to steer De Sousa to the Under Armour program, $2,500 more from an Adidas consultant for online classes for De Sousa and discussing another $20,000 payment from Adidas — that testimony said was never made — to help “get out from under” the $60,000 payment.

“It’s a sad deal,” Self said Tuesday night. “But I just hope (a review and resolution) can happen sooner rather than later, and then we’ll deal with what we’ve got to deal with. But, you know, when there’s so many different factors involved in things like this, you just don’t know when that time frame will be, and certainly I don’t know. Maybe somebody else knows, but I don’t know that yet. I think everybody will cooperate to try to do it as quickly as possible.”

Self has said throughout the past several weeks that any action Kansas takes regarding De Sousa’s status would come after thorough communication with the NCAA.

“Our decision to play (him) will be based on the facts that come out in correspondence with the NCAA,” Self said on Oct. 10. “So it’s not going to be, ‘What does Kansas do?’ It’s going to be what we think is the right approach to obviously try to get to the facts to determine what the situation really is.”