photo by: AP Photo/Jeff Roberson

Purdue's Trey Kaufman-Renn (4) heads to the basket during the second half in the second round of the NCAA college basketball tournament against Miami, Sunday, March 22, 2026, in St. Louis.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Kansas men’s basketball team has loaded up on talent in the final days of the offseason to the point that, following the addition of former Purdue standout Trey Kaufman-Renn, it now has 16 players able to take part this year.

Now they all just have to figure out what to call each other.

“We got a lot of T’s on our team,” freshman forward Tyran Stokes said on Tuesday at Big 12 media day. “We’ve been trying to figure (it) out, because you know we got ‘TK’ and you got ‘TKR,’ you got Tre White, Trent (Perry), Tyran. It’s a lot of T’s, so we’re trying to figure it out right now.”

As Stokes explained, if you start out by saying the initials “TK,” freshman guard Taylen Kinney might look over: “It might just be big TK, little TK. We’ll see.”

That is one small challenge that the Jayhawks face as they attempt to incorporate the former All-American honorable mention and first-team All-Big Ten forward into their established team — which of course has not been established for very long, since KU is now just a few weeks removed from bringing recent Jayhawks Melvin Council Jr. and Tre White back into the fold.

“Having a new person come in every week is kind of something that you don’t really see every day,” Stokes said. “But them being able to come in and walk right into what we’ve been doing for the past four months has been a great thing.”

Indeed, by all accounts, from the moment Kaufman-Renn showed up at KU’s practice on Sunday — “I just walked in, he was just sitting in the corner,” forward Keanu Dawes said. “I was like, ‘Oh! That’s what’s up, I like it'” — the integration process has been fairly smooth.

“TKR has only been here for two days, but it feels like he’s been here for a week,” Stokes said. “We’ve been practicing. He’s been learning, adjusting. He does his own thing. He goes with the coaches and watches film probably three times a day.

“So seeing him be that locked in, it’s been a great thing for the rest of the team because you know some guys might come in, especially an older dude, they might come in and think, ‘Oh, I might have to run the show,’ this, that, and the third, but (instead it’s been) him coming in and just listening to us and also giving us advice.”

KU had been interested in Kaufman-Renn for quite some time, maybe even before it brought back White and Council. The players themselves were well aware of the possibility throughout the process. Oct. 18 is evidently unusually late for anyone to join a team, although head coach Bill Self noted that had the judge in Kaufman-Renn’s court case in Clark County, Indiana, not been forced to go on medical leave, necessitating the appointment of a special new judge, KU could potentially have had him on campus “a couple more weeks” earlier.

The Jayhawks also only had another roster spot at their disposal because freshman forward Grant Mordini suffered a season-ending injury to his patellar tendon.

“You kind of got to sacrifice things,” Stokes said of Mordini. “So him sacrificing one year of eligibility or whatever the case may be for someone, it’s just great.”

Not much recruiting of Kaufman-Renn was required, Self said, because of the presence of his cousin “that is like his sister,” Brooklynn Renn, in Lawrence as a member of the KU women’s basketball team. And Self said he didn’t have to talk to many of his existing players personally about the prospective addition, other than Charleston transfer center Christian Reeves.

“Because Christian’s done really well, and he hasn’t played in five years, or four years at least,” Self said. “You know, his time at Duke, his time at Clemson, and then of course he played quite a bit last year at College of Charleston, he played hurt all year.”

Indeed, Reeves — whose potential playing time with the Jayhawks might be jeopardized by the arrival of Kaufman-Renn, who has experience at both power forward and center — never averaged more than 5.1 minutes per game until last year at Charleston, when he averaged 21.4.

But Self told reporters a message that Kaufman-Renn shared with Reeves right away: “Go back and look at the tape. Every big I played with, I’m going to make him better, and I’ll make you better.”

“Christian was excited about that,” Self said.

Sophomore wing Kohl Rosario pointed out how adept Kaufman-Renn — who averaged 20.1 points and 6.5 rebounds as a junior with the Boilermakers and 14.2 points and 8.3 rebounds as a senior — has proven to be in the short roll, which Self tends to enjoy deploying.

“I think he fits our team really well,” Dawes added. “I think he brings a lot of experience and then also just a lot of energy in general that kind of helps our team going.”

Just don’t expect Kaufman-Renn to debut on Wednesday in KU’s exhibition against Louisville. Self said he could but likely won’t “from a safety standpoint,” since he just arrived.