Basketball Notes: Nash’s nose not broken; junior expected to play

Bryant Nash’s nose isn’t broken after all.

“It’s a non-displaced fracture which means it’s better than a broken nose, I guess,” Kansas basketball coach Roy Williams said Friday after X-rays came back on the KU junior forward’s nose, which was smashed by a UNC Asheville player in the Jayhawks’ 102-50 win on Thursday night.

KU sophomore Keith Langford broke his nose last Friday at practice before the Cal game in Oakland, Calif.

“His was a lot different than Keith’s. Keith’s didn’t have much bleeding at all and Bryant’s really bled a lot,” Williams said.

Nash’s nose won’t need to be set by doctors and he will likely play in today’s game against UMKC at Kemper Arena. Langford’s nose will be set by doctors on Tuesday and he’s been fitted for a plastic mask, which he’ll likely have to wear at practice and in games.

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Trip home paid for by NCAA: KU freshman Moulaye Niang will return to Senegal after today’s game to attend his father’s funeral.

Niang’s trip will be paid for by the NCAA which, according to associate AD Richard Konzem, “has a special assistance fund exactly for these situations where transportation is allowed because of a death of a family member.

“We are able to access the fund to pay directly. There’s a pool of money set aside for every school.”

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Flashy assist: Aaron Miles was credited with an assist when he bounced the ball off the backboard for a trailing Wayne Simien to dunk in Thursday’s game.

“It’s definitely an assist. The intent all along was to set up Wayne,” said Mitch Germann, KU’s director of media relations in charge of the stat crew. “Aaron looked back before he did it. That one was blatant.”

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Reward: Williams recently rewarded his hard-working Jayhawks by calling off the second half of a mid-week practice.

“I tried to trick them the other night. I wrote out a practice plan and it was a pretty lengthy practice and the second half of it was very hard. I told the staff that if they bust their tails, when I got to the water break, I was going to forget the last half of practice.

“But I wasn’t going to tell them (players) because if I’d have told them, they’d pull the nails out of the floor. They really practiced very hard and were into it, and so at water break we did a little free-throw shooting and went home. That workmanlike attitude will continue to help us.”

“It was a nice surprise and I think it helped our legs, too,” senior Kirk Hinrich said.