Bill Self shows appreciation for former players in attendance on Saturday

The NBA hosted its All-Star festivities this past weekend. Obviously, it’s an opportunity to showcase the league’s best in a variety of events, capped off by a game between the the 24 guys voted as All-Stars for their play in the first part of the season. However, for the vast majority of players not selected to participate in All-Star weekend, the few days off from games are a nice break in the middle of a grueling schedule.

Many former college stars like to use that opportunity to go back and visit their schools’ games that weekend.

So, for this weekend’s highly-anticipated home matchup vs. Baylor, Kansas hosted several of last year’s National Title winners in a home-coming. Among those attending were Ochai Agbaji, Christian Braun, Remy Martin, Mitch Lightfoot and Chris Teahan — who were all honored during the game. And Boy, did they get to see quite the contest as Kansas erased a 16-point deficit in the first half to ultimately storm back and win by 16 points themselves, 87-71.

After the game, Jayhawk head coach Bill Self was asked what it meant to see those guys return, some of whom made their first trip back to Lawrence since leaving for the pros last spring.

“Well, I said this earlier and I’m not trying to be funny but Teahan and Lightfoot, we see them all the time,” said Self. The NBA guys haven’t had the opportunity to spend as much time back home, though, per Self.

“I haven’t seen Ochai since he left and I think I’ve seen (Braun) once. Remy flew in for the game and has already flown back out. So I mean that that takes a sacrifice to do that. So I didn’t get chance to see Remy but yeah those guys are loved here and I didn’t see what happened during a timeout I assume they were introduced. But yeah, I love whenever our ex-players come back.”

Coaching the game was of the utmost priority for Bill Self, so he didn’t get to enjoy the honorary festivities for the returning reigning champs as much. Nonetheless, he loves having the former KU stars around and is glad they got to smell their flowers from the fans on Saturday. Oh, and securing a big comeback win over a rival Big 12 power probably had him in an extra good mood on this Alumni Weekend.