Kansas is about to have their team back in Lawrence soon for the start of the school year and, with that, preparation for the upcoming season. However, late in the offseason, the Jayhawks have lost a member of their staff.

On Friday, Bill Self revealed that Chase Buford is no longer on staff at Kansas, leaving them to take an assistant job with the Denver Nuggets in the NBA. That leaves KU with an open seat on its bench that Self does intend to fill with a new coach.

“Bill Self said at his back to school news conference Chase Buford had taken an assistant coaching job with the Denver Nuggets,” Self said today, per Gary Bedore at ‘The Kansas City Star’. “He’s in no hurry to fill the position but will indeed replace Buford who was an assistant at KU this past season.”

Buford spent one season on staff this past year as an assistant at Kansas, when the Jayhawks went 21-13 overall (11-9 in Big 12). He now joins the Nuggets as part of the staff under David Adelman, who’s entering his first season as the franchise’s full-time head coach after being the interim for their final ten games last season after the firing of Mike Malone. Now, in Denver, Buford will join another Rock Chalk alumni in Christian Braun, who’s coming off a career-best season in his third year in the association at 15.4 points (58% FG, 39.7% 3PT on 1.1 makes), 5.2 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 1.1 steals per game.

As a player, Buford spent three seasons at Kansas from 2007-2010, appearing in 35 games. That included being part of the program’s four national title teams, including one of their two under Self, in his first year with the team in 2008.

Since then, Buford gained experience all around professional basketball, namely with several jobs around the NBA. He worked as a regional scout and then video coordinator with the Atlanta Hawks before becoming a coordinator of player development with the Chicago Bulls. Then, in bigger opportunities in the G-League, Buford became an assistant with the Erie Bayhawks in 2017 and the Delaware Blue Coats in 2018 before earning the job as head coach of the Wisconsin Herd in 2019. He’d then spent the previous three seasons coaching the Sydney Kings in the NBL in Austrailia.

This report will be updated further