It looks like Billy Preston, the 6-foot-10, 240-pound forward from Los Angeles, Calif., will have to wait a little bit longer to make his regular season debut in a Kansas uniform. Preston, playing at Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va., was the No. 11 ranked player in the 2017 class and was expected to play a major role for Kansas this season.

However, Preston was suspended for the season opener against Tennessee State for a violation of team rules. According to Self, Preston missed curfew on Thursday night and also did not attend class on Friday.

Preston, not surprisingly, was very much looking forward to making his debut against Kentucky on Tuesday night, but an incident that occurred in Lawrence on Saturday prevented him from seeing his first action of the regular season.

“On Saturday, Billy was involved in a single-vehicle incident on-campus,” said Self. “There were no injuries but Billy’s car sustained damage. After I learned about the incident, I reported it to our administration. The administration determined that we needed a clearer financial picture specific to the vehicle, we decided to hold him out of tonight’s game and will continue to do that until the review is complete.

“Billy was informed right before our pre-game meal,” he added. Needless to say, he was disappointed and crushed. He was very excited to make his KU debut. We hope to have the situation resolved as soon as possible.”

Unless something changes within the next 24-hours, it looks like Preston will have to wait a little longer to make his regular season debut in a Kansas uniform.

“The update is there’s no update,” said Kansas head coach Bill Self when asked on Thursday. “I was just with our administration and there hasn’t been a conclusion to it, and certainly there’s not a ribbon or bow put on it yet. I don’t know that everybody’s on the same timeline that we’d all like for it to be on.

“I still anticipate it being sooner rather than later,” he added. “But it’s not yet. Nobody has declared him ineligible or anything like that, so I don’t know why he couldn’t practice. He hasn’t been declared ineligible, he’s been declared eligible by the NCAA through the initial amateurism stuff and everything, and through his grades and met the qualifications. We’re definitely going to hold him until we get to the bottom of this.”

While Self didn’t officially slam the door on Preston making his debut on Friday night, Kansas is preparing to face South Dakota State as if Preston won’t be available.

“We’ve got to prepare like we’re not going to have him, and then it would be a bonus if you did (have him on Friday night),” said Self. “But we’ll certainly prepare like we’re not going to (have him). Against Kentucky, we prepared like we were going to have him, so that will be a little bit different.”