Now 30 years old, Frank Mason III leads KU alumni team into The Basketball Tournament

Kansas’ alumni basketball team will have two proven point guards on the bench in head coach Sherron Collins and general manager Tyshawn Taylor on Saturday night at Koch Arena in Wichita.

Just one former KU floor general will be available to play in a 7 p.m. TBT opener between the Jayhawks’ “Mass Street” squad and a team of Colorado State alums called “Ram Up,” however.

He’s 30-year-old 2017 Wooden Award and Naismith Trophy winner Frank Mason III , whose only PG backup on the roster will be Travis Washington, a 6-foot former mid-major player out of Utah Valley, who played for a team in Germany in 2023-24.

“As many as he wants,” Mass Street coach Collins said with a smile when asked by The Star how many minutes the 5-foot-11, 190-pound Mason would play in the opener. Mason played for a team in France this past season.

“We did tell him, ‘Let us know when you need a break. We’ve got a backup point guard. We’ve got a good core group,’” Collins, head coach at Oak Park High school, added. “We won’t overuse him because Frank is going to be Mr. Elam (Ending) this year. We want Frank to close these games out. He’s a veteran. He’ll be great with these guys.”

Mason and Washington are joined on the Mass Street roster by forwards Dedric Lawson, Chandler Lawson , Jamari Traylor, Kevin Young and Billy Preston, plus combo guards Lagerald Vick and Sam Cunliffe. A team official said it’s possible wing Brandon Rush will make it to Wichita for the opener, giving KU 10 players.

The Jayhawks’ roster took a hit recently when 2012 Big 12 Player of the Year Thomas Robinson indicated he wouldn’t be able to return from Puerto Rico, where his pro team is in the playoffs. The 6-foot-10, 240-pound, 33-year-old power forward is on the roster, so it’s possible he could join the team if it continues to advance in the single-elimination tourney.

Winner of the Mass Street-Colorado State game will meet either Florida TNT or the LA Cheaters at 6 p.m. Monday at Koch Arena. The Wichita Regional championship game is 8 p.m., Wednesday, also at Koch. Saturday’s KU-Colorado State game will be available via livestream on the TBT website.

The KU alumni team is seeded second in the Wichita Regional behind a Wichita State alumni squad called “AfterShocks.”

The winner of the Wichita Regional will play the winner of the Houston Regional in the quarterfinals on July 29 or 30 (official game date, time, and location to be determined). The semifinals and $1 million winner-take-all championship game will be Aug. 2 and Aug. 4 in Philadelphia at the Daskalakis Athletic Center.

“Oh man, that would have been a great combination with what we have,” Collins said of a Mason-Robinson inside/outside duo. “It would have been hard to beat us. With the core we have it’d have been a hard attack to stop. We’re rooting for him and hope he wins it in Puerto Rico. We wish he was here with us too.”

Mason, who turned 30 on April 3, was a second-round pick of the Sacramento Kings in the 2017 NBA Draft. He played four seasons in the NBA — two for Sacramento, one for Milwaukee and one for Orlando.

He’s also played in Lebanon, Italy and France this past season.

“Honestly if you know me, I look forward to competing with all of my teammates,” Mason said. “It will be a really cool experience. Hopefully we can come out on top. I think this is really cool being in front of fans back in the state of Kansas. We all get to compete together, even the guys who didn’t compete in college — the brotherhood at Kansas among the players past and present is really cool.”

KU forward Dedric Lawson, who was MVP of a pro league in South Korea in 2023-24, said he’s especially looking forward to playing with point guard deluxe Mason as well as his brother Chandler Lawson, a small forward who played at Arkansas last year. Dedric was first-team All-Big 12 in 2019.

“I came to KU a year after Frank left and redshirted,” Dedric Lawson said. He was a transfer from Memphis. “Of course Frank was the best player in the country that year in college. To play with him now is a truly humbling experience. No one takes that for granted. We’ll play hard and have fun. We are trying to win and make it fun for the fans.”

The KU team, which Lawson was a member (with Vick, Traylor and Young), went 2-1 in Wichita a year ago, not making it to the Final Four.

“We have some guys who want to make a statement more than last year. We’re going to compete and play at a high level,” Lawson said.

Saturday’s opponent, Ram Up , directed by head coach/general manager Derrick Stevens, lost to LA Cheaters in the first game of the 2022 tourney and Arkansas’ alumni team in Round 1 last year.