photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas head coach Bill Self pumps up the fans during Late Night in the Phog on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022 at Allen Fieldhouse.

Kansas Athletics’ annual preseason basketball celebration is back for a 39th iteration.

Late Night in the Phog, the exhibition and entertainment extravaganza that has anchored the KU basketball preseason for 39 years, will return to Allen Fieldhouse on Oct. 6, the school announced Monday.

Further details on the event were not disclosed, but it typically features scrimmages by the men’s and women’s basketball teams along with music and dance performances, usually featuring a headlining hip-hop artist of some kind. Last year’s guest performer, Shaquille O’Neal aka DJ Diesel, hardly fit that description, but previous iterations have featured the likes of Snoop Dogg and Lil Yachty.

The event began as “Late Night with Larry Brown” in 1985 and has evolved dramatically in the years since, growing to feature the women’s basketball team beginning in 1988 and nearly tripling its number of attendees. Kansas Athletics reports that Late Night has sold out every single year since 1991. The event was livestreamed in 2020 due to the pandemic but is slated to return in person for its third year since.

Late Night in the Phog used to center around a midnight scrimmage but has begun substantially earlier since the 2005 edition. Last year’s event began at 6 p.m.

Volleyball honors

The Big 12 Conference community expects Kansas volleyball to stay right on track in the newly expanded 13-team league.

The Jayhawks have finished fifth in the league each of the last three seasons, earning NCAA Tournament bids in the previous two. Despite four new quality teams entering the league in BYU, Central Florida, Cincinnati and Houston, three of which made last year’s tournament, conference coaches voted for KU to come in fifth once again in the preseason poll released Monday.

KU went 19-11 with an 8-8 Big 12 record last year. One key returner for the Jayhawks is setter Camryn Turner, a Topeka native, who was voted to the preseason all-conference team, which was announced Tuesday. She averaged 9.25 assists and 2.586 digs per set last season and will continue to guide the offense as a junior in 2023.

Ahead of KU, Texas was picked to finish first, followed by BYU, Baylor and TCU. The rest of the rankings include Houston, Iowa State, Kansas State, UCF, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Cincinnati and West Virginia in that order.

Kansas’ offseason acquisitions include freshmen Aisha Aiono, Raegan Burns and Ellie Schneider, plus transfers Reagan Cooper (Texas Tech) and Mykayla Myers (TCU), who started their careers together at Washington State. The Jayhawks also added Toyosi Onabanjo from Iowa. In the offseason, head coach Ray Bechard received a three-year extension, assistants Billy Ebel and Kaitlin Nielsen were each promoted to associate head coach and previous volunteer assistant Brian Tate was hired on to a standard assistant role.

photo by: Aiden Droge/Kansas Athletics

Kansas setter Camryn Turner points to teammate Caroline Bien (No. 14) during a second-round NCAA Tournament match versus Creighton at D.J. Sokol Arena in Omaha, Neb., on Dec. 3, 2021.