Kansas head coach Bill Self talks with Johnny Furphy during Media Day on Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

Kansas men’s basketball freshman Johnny Furphy met with reporters for the first time at the team’s media day Wednesday, but fans may have to wait a little longer to see him in extended action.

The same day that Furphy earned a nod to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s 2024 Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year Watch List — before ever having played college basketball — his head coach Bill Self said that he had already missed 10 days of practice due to a “very severe case” of shin splints. That takes him out of contention for serving as the fifth starter in Sunday’s exhibition at Illinois, Self said.

Self later added he was concerned about Furphy falling behind, especially given that he only arrived on campus in late August.

“I don’t know how much he’s going to miss,” Self said at media day. “Because he was behind getting here and then he’s been out for about 10 days and that 10 days is probably going to be another week. And then we’re hopeful when he does come back there’s no setbacks. And he needs the reps as much as anybody.”

Another seven days out of practice could potentially take him out of contention for not just the Illinois matchup, but next Wednesday’s home exhibition against Fort Hays State. And KU is hoping Furphy, a native of Melbourne, Australia, who rocketed to prominence playing at the NBA Academy Games in Atlanta in July, can get up to speed quickly enough to play significant minutes right away. Once the regular season begins, the Jayhawks will only have eight scholarship players available for any game in which Furphy can’t go.

“We couldn’t be happier with him so far on his presence and also his play, but he’s a young guy that needs reps,” Self said. “And so get him back in a week, then you still have 10 days before you go to Chicago (for the Champions Classic game against Kentucky on Nov. 14), you may be able to pace it out a little bit. But we’re kind of running out of time; he needs to be out there.”

Furphy’s tape makes it clear that he can finish at the rim and shoot from long distance. The area of emphasis for the freshman since his arrival in Lawrence, as he told reporters on the James Naismith Court Wednesday, has been cultivating his physicality and working on his body with director of sports performance Ramsey Nijem. He said the physical element has been his biggest adjustment to American basketball.

“Just in the weight room, Ramsey’s been awesome so far,” Furphy said. “It’s definitely a massive focus for me right now, just gaining a lot of carbs, a lot of protein and working daily on it in the gym.”

One bit of history that could give the 6-foot-9, 202-pound wing a leg up: He played Australian rules football in high school. (His father, Richard, played too, and in fact, Johnny’s older brother Joe recently signed with the Geelong Cats of the Australian Football League.) He says it’s not hard to tell when a basketball player has experience in the sport.

“Being able to absorb and take on contact would be the biggest thing,” Furphy said.

Josh Giddey, a fellow product of Australia’s Centre of Excellence whom Furphy describes as a role model, who became a top-10 NBA draft selection of the Oklahoma City Thunder, also played Australian football until he had to settle on one sport midway through high school.

Like his fellow freshmen, who have said as much about their own approaches throughout the summer and early fall, Furphy believes he’ll be able to make an impact “mainly defensively” and “without the ball.”

“I think that’s where I’ll be able to generate my offense from,” he said.

For the moment, though, that will remain largely speculative due to the shin splints — pain in the lower leg from repetitive, hard exertion. Furphy’s coach in Australia, Robbie McKinlay, previously told the Journal-World that shin splints had also impeded Furphy’s development during his year at the CoE, preventing him from “maximizing his time here.”

The young wing is currently getting treatment twice a day for his ailment, featuring different styles of running, including underwater, all “pretty thorough trying to get me back to 100%,” he said. In his absence, fellow freshmen Elmarko Jackson and Jamari McDowell and super-senior Nick Timberlake should receive greater workloads.