Support from Kansas basketball fans has followed Frank Mason III around the world as he’s taken his professional career from the NBA and G League to Lebanon, France and, next season, Italy.
Now it’s Mason’s turn to come back to the state where he got started.
Seven years removed from his Naismith Trophy season at KU, Mason is thrilled to get back in front of the crimson-and-blue faithful as a member of the Mass Street alumni team in The Basketball Tournament later this month in Wichita.
“I actually thought about playing last year but it didn’t work out, so I felt like this year was the perfect time,” he said on Thursday. “Just to get back and play in front of the Kansas fans is just always an unbelievable experience. I just felt like the time was this year, so I’m looking forward to it, I’m excited.”
Mason, who recently signed to play for Scafati in the top level of Italian basketball, is coming off a season in which he averaged 15.5 points and 5.2 assists for Nancy in France. He was the G League MVP during the 2019-20 season, when he put up a whopping 26.4 points per game for a Wisconsin Herd team, coached by now-KU analyst Chase Buford, that finished with the league’s best record.
“I honestly think I’m still the same player (I was at Kansas), you know,” Mason said. “I kind of play the same way, I just got older … Still aggressive, get to the basket whenever, can create for teammates, shoot the ball really well. Just still extremely competitive, so I think I still have the same game from college.”
If Mass Street is going to make a deep run this year, it’ll need that MVP type of form from Mason.
“We don’t want to just go out and just be there, you know?” Mason said. “We want to take advantage of the opportunity and come out on top.”
Even as a veteran at 30 years old, Mason is younger than many of the players on last year’s Mass Street team, which took narrow victories in first- and second-round matchups before running out of gas against eventual TBT champion Heartfire, which claimed the million-dollar prize.
Mason overlapped at KU with Malik Newman, Jamari Traylor and Lagerald Vick, who are all members of this year’s Mass Street team. Sam Cunliffe, a recent addition to the roster, transferred to KU midway through Mason’s senior season and sat out until the following year.
The rest of the roster includes Silvio De Sousa, Dedric Lawson, Mario Little, Thomas Robinson and Kevin Young, with Sherron Collins, currently a high school coach in Kansas City, as its head coach.
“I think it’s going to be a really exciting time, just to play with the guys I played with in the past, just kind of catch up with everybody, compete with them,” Mason said. “And even the guys I didn’t play with at Kansas, I think it’s just going to be a really cool experience and something that I’ll never forget and I’ll always cherish.”
Mass Street is set to take on a Kansas State alumni team at Johnson County Community College on Wednesday and hold an open practice on Thursday before it opens TBT on July 20 against Colorado State alumni team Ram Up.
Mason, who hit a memorable game-winning shot for KU against Duke in 2016, said he isn’t particularly well acquainted with TBT’s Elam Ending format but a potential TBT game-winner could become “something I’ll always remember.”
“Hopefully it don’t have to come down to that,” he said, “but I think it’s a dope format and I’m looking forward to competing in it.”
— Sports reporter David Rodish contributed to this story.
AP Photo/John Raoux
