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Kansas big man returns to lineup, sophomore inserted to starting five vs. Utah

Brannen Greene

AP

AP

No. 10 Kansas follows up a road victory over Georgetown with a neutral site meeting with No. 13 Utah on Saturday afternoon at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Missouri.

On Wednesday, Brannen Greene dropped a career-high 19 points, including 5-for-5 from three, in the Jayhawks’ 75-70 win over the Hoyas. His performance will be rewarded with a spot in the starting five against the Utes, replacing Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk. It’ll be Greene’s first start since opening night against UC Santa Barbara, a game in which he scored three points in 17 minutes.

The 6-foot-7 Greene had gone scoreless through the previous two games in limited action, but is averaging 6.4 points per game and shooting the ball well from beyond the arc. The Utes are allowing opponents to shoot 33 percent from three this season.

This is the first change Bill Self has made to the starting lineup during KU’s current six-game winning streak. However, this wasn’t the only roster move made on Friday.

Self also announced that Jamari Traylor will suit up against Utah. The junior forward was arrested earlier this week, charged with interfering with a police officer.

“Jamari is going to suit and play. He’s obviously paid the penalty for making a poor decision on not cooperating on something he wasn’t remotely involved in,” Self told reporters, via KUSports.com. “It brought a lot of negative attention on him. Certainly he’s embarrassed by it. The only way you can handle this, like we’ve told him is become a better man because of it and identify why that would happen. He’s certainly working on that and open to doing that. I don’t see any reason for penalizing him any more than what we’ve already done.”

Traylor is averaging 3.3 points and 3.9 rebounds in 19.1 minutes per game this season.

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