Kansas forward Trey Kaufman-Renn (9) laughs with an official during the first half on Monday, Nov. 2, 2026 at Allen Fieldhouse. Nick Krug/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas forward Trey Kaufman-Renn learned on Wednesday that his teammate Keanu Dawes loves playing chess — a fortuitous discovery given that Kaufman-Renn enjoys the game himself and has an active Chess.com account.

It’s the sort of insight Kaufman-Renn might have gleaned earlier had he been with the Jayhawks throughout the summer, but has instead found himself picking up with the season already underway, less than three weeks removed from his late arrival in Lawrence.

“You never know going into a new locker room, especially as late as I got in, but everybody kind of welcomed me with open arms,” Kaufman-Renn said on Thursday.

That’s fortunate for a player whom head coach Bill Self has already declared he is nicknaming “The Connector.”

“He makes the game easier for everybody that’s on the court,” Self said. “So, I think that’s one thing, from his IQ to his athletic ability to his experience, his voice, there’s a lot of things he does that (make) the game easier for everybody else.”

And, to hear Self tell that, he’s doing them to a particularly impressive extent for someone who was not on the roster until mid-October.

“I would certainly say he’s different when it comes to that,” Self said.

Kaufman-Renn, originally from Sellersburg, Indiana, was on some good teams in his five seasons at Purdue — only four of which he played in, which proved to be the crux of the court case against the NCAA in Clark County, Indiana, by which he earned an injunction to return for the 2026-27 season.

Most notably, the Boilermakers reached the national title game when he was a redshirt sophomore playing alongside Zach Edey. He averaged 20.1 points and 6.5 rebounds per game the following year for a group that reached the Sweet 16, then 14.2 points and 8.3 boards as a senior as Purdue made it to the Elite Eight (thanks to his game-winning tip-in in the previous round).

Kaufman-Renn said he prides himself on his versatility and attempted to display it throughout his tenure with the Boilermakers.

“My junior year I was much more of a scorer, much more of a go-to guy, and then my senior year I took a step back, became more of a rebounder and more of a role player in that way,” Kaufman-Renn said. “Obviously my sophomore year I’m with Zach, the best player in the country, in a support role, and try to get him involved.”

Kaufman-Renn thought he had ended his collegiate career without a national championship. He was selected 59th overall by the Minnesota Timberwolves in last summer’s NBA Draft. It did not prove to be the most fruitful stint in the pros for Kaufman-Renn: “My time in the NBA is very, very limited, I guess,” he said with a laugh.

He appeared in five Summer League games — making him one of three current Jayhawks with experience in the competition — and posted 6.6 points and 3.6 rebounds in 12.7 minutes.

“I mean, guys, he got drafted 59 and then was told basically, ‘Hey, you’re not ready,’ which is the same thing that everybody’s told,” Self said, “… He tried it and wasn’t quite ready yet, at least that’s what he was told or he wouldn’t be here, but that’s what (Melvin Council Jr. and Tre White) were told as well, and if you don’t think they were told that, why would they be at Kansas?”

Other than playing at a faster pace, Kaufman-Renn didn’t take much away from an on-court perspective from his time with the Timberwolves. Self said he asks Kaufman-Renn far more often about how he was used in Purdue.

“Honestly, it’s just a completely different game than college because of the shot clock, because of the spacing on the floor,” he said. “As somebody who likes X’s and O’s, it’s actually not that interesting, to be honest with you. It’s kind of spread pick and roll, very basic action, so you don’t learn a lot schematically from the NBA.”

What Kaufman-Renn knew schematically of Self, on the other hand, he greatly appreciated.

“As far as being a college basketball fan, somebody who likes basketball in general, playing for Coach Bill Self, and obviously high-low motions, overload pins, all the special things that’s made him so special and how he’s changed the game,” Kaufman-Renn said, “being just in a room with that and being able to learn from that is something that I’ve found to be really cool.”

The veteran is also able to take some of his own knowledge and use it to aid his teammates when possible. As he said, it can be difficult for young players to learn how to play in a motion offense.

“My thing is try to make everybody on the floor a better player,” Kaufman-Renn said. “We want Tyran (Stokes) to — obviously we want him to be the No. 1 draft pick. We want him to be the best player on the floor every single game. Trying to get him to be aggressive, trying to get him to make the right play, make all the right places and try to make him as good as possible.

“(Taylen Kinney), we were talking about yesterday, just ball-screen reads. What happens when you snake a ball screen, what happens when they’re in drop coverage, what happens when they’re in different defensive coverages? So all the experience that I’ve had in college, just trying to impart that especially on the younger guys because of how talented they are and how much that they’re going to help us win basketball games.”

Evidently Kaufman-Renn will have a lot to say about that himself. It took him some time to get up to speed — “I was doing individual workouts and local runs,” he said, “but that’s different than being a part of a top-10 team in college basketball, and being up to their speed and their shape, especially with how many athletic guys we have on the team as well and how fast we’re wanting to play” — but he debuted in KU’s season opener on Monday against Fordham with nine points and five rebounds in 23 minutes, including a rare 3-pointer. Self has already declared him a starter.

“We’ve had a lot of good big men, but we haven’t had very many facilitators,” Self said. “Hunter (Dickinson) was naturally still a scorer, even though he’s a good passer. But (Kaufman-Renn’s) deal is just how he can create pockets, how he can talk, how he can cover for people’s mistakes defensively. There’s a lot of things with him that (allow) a team to be good.”