This morning, I am happy about my home state. Shall we talk Hawks?!

On Monday, KU beat Fordham 95-65. to open their season. Tre White led the Jayhawks with 22 on 9/12 shooting, and the Jayhawks separated in a meaningful way right before the break and after. It’s a really nice response to the two losses in the exhibition portion of the season.

Trey Kaufman-Renn made his debut, and looks like exactly the kind of connective, all-around player that the Jayhawks need. The Jayhawks shot the three OK (9/25, 36%) and were awful at the foul line (16/30, surely that won’t come back to bite us!), but they dominated in all the other key areas, despite the fact that Fordham shot more threes and at a better percentage.

The half-court offense still looks a little “peach basket.” However, this early in the season, we’re probably pretty used to that — Kansas brought in 11 newcomers that are still learning Self’s version of the thing. We’ll give them time, we don’t really have a choice.

Lots of positives, though. Leroy Blyden looked in control, and could be a real difference-maker off the bench. Council is still a tornado. I thought Tyran Stokes found lots of ways to impact the game with passing and rebounding when his shot didn’t fall. TKR showed off his savvy and experience, and will definitely be in the closing 5 from here on out. Keanu Dawes — board man gets paid. Self has shored up key areas, and on the zoom-out, things are looking pretty good, we’ve got a few play-style options and a burgeoning second unit that can keep up the pressure.

I am — tentatively, temporarily — relieved by the state of the roster.

This appears to be Self’s deepest team in the NIL era, offering a lot of interesting guys who can do interesting things. The question of “how it all comes together” is now the primary narrative of the early season. Situational lineups are going to be something the Jayhawks will have to consider this year, moreso than in immediate years’ past. We can play big, we can play small. We can flood the floor with switch-y wings. We’ll have a ton of lineup data to pore over, because there’s going to be dozens of variations.

If it means the Jayhawks are doing well, I will happily eat crow, find me the largest crow in the contiguous U.S., crow me up! However I am having a hard time with the idea that Tre White is the primary offensive option on a Final Four team. In Self’s view, the team might be better served with Tyran Stokes moving and passing, rather than trying to be more direct with the scoring. Is that the best use of his abilities? I’m just asking questions!

Christian Reeves is big and gets to the right spots — how will he factor into a suddenly-crowded frontcourt? Can Council and Kinney get a handle on their turnovers? I noticed a lot of drives that kicked out to the perimeter, which is very nice to see. Bill Self is growing up! Paul Mbiya barely plays. Kohl Rosario isn’t even the mix yet, as he is currently out with post-concussion issues.

Something that is frustrating about writing about the Jayhawks in the early season is that we’re all witnessing cut-downs of how the Jayhawks might play, without fully knowing what approach will be the vision they rely on when they need a stop or a bucket. Having a lot of experience on the roster is something that cuts down this noise, for sure — these relatively known entities know their spots, have played these roles before, have won a ton of games throughout their respective careers, it would be crazy to ask them to reinvent themselves. It’s now about how everything fits around them, and whether the Jayhawks can take this talent and get the most out of it.

Should the Jayhawks chase their ceiling, or trust their high-floor situation? And just how high is the floor we’re talking? I’ll stop speaking of floors. Jayhawks take on MTSU (KenPom 170s) Friday night, so it’s unlikely we’ll get a peek at what ideas they’re going with before next Tuesday’s Champions Classic tilt with Kentucky. We’ll discuss more then.