Two separate incidents nearly kept Kansas junior Ochai Agbaji from playing Tuesday at TCU

By Matt Tait     Jan 6, 2021

article image
Kansas junior Ochai Agbaji falls to the floor during a game against TCU Tuesday night at Schollmaier Arena in Fort Worth, Texas on January 5, 2021. (Photo/Gregg Ellman)

A whirlwind few days for Ochai Agbaji culminated Tuesday night, with the Kansas junior dropping 19 points to help [No. 6 Kansas sprint past TCU, 93-64,][1] in Fort Worth, Texas.

In the roughly 72 hours that followed Saturday’s home loss to Texas, Agbaji twice encountered situations that nearly kept him out of KU’s latest victory.

The first came over the weekend, when Agbaji received what turned out to be a false-positive COVID-19 test after taking a rapid test.

Kansas coach Bill Self announced the false positive during a pregame television interview with Greg Gurley. And he talked a little more about it during his postgame Zoom call with reporters.

“That’s what happens when you do the rapid test,” Self said of the false-positive. “We’ve all experienced those. I’ve had one in the last two weeks. … That’s something every team is going through. And it’s nothing unusual for it to happen to us. It’s happened several times already, and it’ll probably happen some more moving forward.”

Self said that when a player or coach receives what they believe to be a false-positive test result, the protocol is for that individual to quarantine and isolate himself until he receives two negative PCR tests back-to-back on different days.

“Obviously, that confirms that it was a false positive,” Self said. “We didn’t think it was an issue. But it was something that we had to deal with. Fortunately, all he missed out on was one practice.”

While awaiting his PCR test results, Agbaji sat out of Sunday’s practice but was able to return for Monday’s session. That return, however, was short-lived, as Agbaji tweaked a hamstring during Monday’s practice.

Self said after Tuesday’s victory that they discussed holding Agbaji out of the TCU game altogether.

“We talked about it a lot with the doctors,” Self said. “But he went through some pretty extensive, rigorous types of stretching and movement at shoot-around and he actually felt pretty good. So he got a ton of treatment and said that he was going to give it a try.”

With backcourt mates Marcus Garrett (head) and Bryce Thompson (back) already sidelined for Tuesday’s game, Self signed off on the decision for Agbaji to play, but not without some ground rules.

“I told him that if (he felt) anything coming on or if it twinges at all, (he was) coming out,” Self explained. “And he said he’d let me know. But there was absolutely nothing. I thought he looked 100%. I thought he did great. But he does need a couple of days. So this little short break will hopefully help us and hopefully he’ll be closer to full speed by Friday.”

Kansas is off until Saturday, when Oklahoma comes to Allen Fieldhouse for a 3:30 p.m. tipoff on CBS.

[1]: http://www2.kusports.com/news/2021/jan/05/shorthanded-jayhawks-roll-past-horned-frogs-93-64-/

PREV POST

Notebook: Like last year, Kansas able to bounce back from league loss in early January

NEXT POST

55278Two separate incidents nearly kept Kansas junior Ochai Agbaji from playing Tuesday at TCU

Author Photo

Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.