Kansas forward Keanu Dawes (8) pulls up for a three against Duke during the second half on Sunday, Oct. 25, 2026 at Allen Fieldhouse. Nick Krug/Special to the Journal-World

Kansas coach Bill Self said on Oct. 15 that the Jayhawks hadn’t practiced playing small yet — that is, for this year’s team, deploying 6-foot-9 forward Keanu Dawes as an undersized center with Tyran Stokes at power forward.

Even prior to Sunday, Dawes said, KU still hadn’t spent much time on it: “I think it’s something that we’re in the process of working on,” he said, “like it’s kind of new for everybody.”

That newness didn’t stop Self from throwing Dawes in at center for nearly the entire second half of KU’s 90-84 exhibition loss to Duke. Neither of the Jayhawks’ 7-footers, Paul Mbiya or Christian Reeves, took the floor during the half.

Even though the Blue Devils were fielding an imposing frontcourt of 6-foot-11 Patrick Ngongba II and 7-foot-2 Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje — the Jayhawks largely contained the latter but allowed a 28-point, 10-rebound double-double to the former — the tactic worked reasonably well.

“I thought if our guards rebounded, I thought it would have gone really well,” Self said. “… “If we were able to be better equipped on switching and weak-side help and attacking the ball when the ball’s in the air, things like that, we could have done better.

“But what we saw today, Keanu’s matchup when a 5-man guards him plays to our advantage. So I thought he did well.”

Dawes didn’t have an exceptional first two exhibition games as a Jayhawk, with one point and eight rebounds in 16 minutes against Division II Pittsburg State and five points and five rebounds in 22 minutes against Louisville. But he certainly provided a spark against the Blue Devils, finishing with 11 points, four rebounds and a pair of blocks. During one key run midway through the second half, he knocked down a 3-pointer and finished a lob from Melvin Council Jr., demonstrating a diverse offensive skill set that may indeed make him a challenge to defend for opposing big men.

“I feel like it went solid,” Dawes said of his second half. “I definitely could have rebounded more. I probably could have done a little bit more defensively.”

What the new lineup did not do was contain Ngongba, whose production continued largely unabated: “He’s tough,” Dawes said. “He’s really skilled, and he has a really good feel for the game.”

Self touted the small lineup at times during the offseason but at others referred to it as primarily a situational option. On Sunday, he found himself to some extent forced into it because, he said, KU couldn’t defend satisfactorily without being able to switch at all five positions on defense. To be able to do that, it had to sideline Mbiya and Reeves.

“They moved the ball so quick the first half that our ball-screen defense was nonexistent,” Self said, “but it wasn’t because of the bigs, it was because the ball moved and they could take advantage of short roll and all that stuff. We don’t do that well yet. And so we went small to switch.”

It was hardly a pre-planned move, but to hear Dawes tell it, there was nothing wrong with trying to figure it out on the fly.

“Honestly I think it was the best thing that could have happened,” Dawes said. “There’s no better way to learn from it than playing against a really dominant two-big lineup, so I think it was really good for us.”

Dawes finished with a plus-minus of plus-2, one of just a few positive totals on the roster. It was the same total for lineups in which he served as the primary big man.

One key note for KU’s future frontcourt arrangements: former Purdue big man Trey Kaufman-Renn is still working his way into action. Self said his conditioning still needs work.

In any case, with the exhibition season done, now it’s time for Dawes and the rest of the Jayhawks to transfer what they’ve learned into regular action, beginning on Monday, Nov. 2, with the season opener against Fordham.

“I learned for me personally that I can bring a different level of intensity defensively that I’ve never really tapped into before, and then as a team I think I just learned we have potential to be really, really good,” Dawes said. “Even though the outcomes haven’t been what we want them to be, we’ve seen a lot of good stuff that we do like.”