Kansas guard Tre White (3) walks to center court during the senior introductions, Saturday, March 7, 2026, at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

Updated 2:56 p.m. Tuesday, March 10, 2026:

The Kansas men’s basketball team took home a fair bit of hardware from Monday’s All-Big 12 awards, including a defensive player of the year honor for Flory Bidunga, newcomer of the year for Melvin Council Jr. and a second-team all-league selection for Darryn Peterson.

But head coach Bill Self was left wanting more in one particular area.

“The only thing that disappointed me was Tre didn’t get anything,” he said on his “Hawk Talk” radio show later on Monday night.

Senior forward Tre White, originally from Dallas, experienced a career-best regular season with the Jayhawks in his final year of eligibility. The well-traveled White had undergone stints with USC as a freshman, Louisville as a sophomore and Illinois as a junior before circling back to KU, a program to which he had once committed as a high school underclassman.

Despite never being the Jayhawks’ primary offensive option, the 6-foot-7 wing has reached career-high averages in points per game (14.3), rebounds per game (6.9) and most impressively 3-point percentage (43.5% on high volume, when he had previously shot 30.1% in his career). He has also demonstrated a knack for getting to the free-throw line and converted at a higher rate, 86.6%, than any other Jayhawk.

That’s why Self thought he should have made the all-newcomer team — which had Council with Texas Tech’s Donovan Atwell, Baylor’s Cameron Carr, UCF’s Themus Fulks and Cincinnati’s Baba Miller — or at least received an all-league honorable mention as Council did.

“Unbelievable for us, and didn’t win anything,” Council said on Tuesday. “That was crazy. I don’t understand that.”

Self, for his part, had no control over that particular result because coaches who take part in the polling for these awards are not allowed to vote for their own players; they simply present nominations on which 15 other coaches vote.

“So it was a little disappointing Tre didn’t have one other coach feel like that he was in the top of the league as far as an all-league-type guy,” Self said, “because in my eyes, he’s certainly that and more.”

The Jayhawks’ 23rd-year head coach expanded on White’s utility a little more later in his show, emphasizing that he has grown beyond what he showed at his past schools and “obviously shot the ball at a much better clip.”

On the defensive end, KU hasn’t had to play White at power forward all that much this season, or perhaps as much as it might have anticipated, due to Bryson Tiller’s emergence, but he still has a degree of defensive versatility, like his teammates, that helps KU switch on ball screens.

“You know, he’s big enough that he can guard a big guy some, and he’s small enough he can guard a guard some, which makes him extra valuable,” Self said, “but to me he’s a winner.”

White wrapped up his relatively brief Allen Fieldhouse career on Saturday’s senior day, matching a season high with 23 points and a career high with five 3s, and reflected a bit on his KU experience afterward.

“Walking out this tunnel every game, I feel like no matter what happens next, that’s going to be unmatched,” White said. “And then just the history, being able to be a part of that. And we still got the rest of the season to try to make history ourselves.”

He and the rest of the Jayhawks will take the floor next at T-Mobile Center on Thursday night for the Big 12 tournament as they angle for postseason positioning.

TAKING THE FLOOR

Self said that KU had the chance to practice on Monday on the much-discussed ASB GlassFloor that the Big 12 has installed at T-Mobile Center. It is a glass court with LED technology that allows the floor to serve as a sort of video screen and switch between numerous different designs.

The conference installed the court for last week’s women’s basketball tournament, during which a variety of players referred to it as slick or slippery. KU women’s basketball coach Brandon Schneider suggested to Self that he get his team over to experience the court in advance, and Big 12 officials endorsed the idea.

“The thing that I would be most concerned about from what the players told me … this one doesn’t have the same traction as what our floor here does,” Self said. “You’ll see a lot of guys going to the bottom of the shoes in some way, shape or form, during all the timeouts and dead balls and stuff like that.”

The Jayhawks spent half an hour on the court before finishing their practice at the College Basketball Experience connected to the arena.

Flory Bidunga called the glass floor “unusual” and Council compared it to playing outside at the Gus Macker 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament, or at Rucker Park in New York.

“We got to get used to it because that’s the court we’re going to be playing on,” he said.