What this means...from press row

Gary Bedore, Journal-World KU men's basketball beat writer

"The Jayhawks gave their fans a nice Christmas present, with a very impressive win over a good Boston College team. Chalmers was great and Rush was too, helping hold Dudley down while scoring his share of points.

"The two dunks at the end of the rout were stocking presents for the fans, who left with big smiles on their faces.

Boston College was terrible from three point land and that assured the rout.

Nice win. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night."

Tom Keegan, Journal-World sports editor

"He shot well, he penetrated and dished well, he took it to the hole like a pro, had his three-point shot working and helped to make life miserable for Boston College's guards.

There wasn't anything Mario Chalmers didn't do well Saturday afternoon, when he even did his part to exhort the crowd into its loudest performance of the season."

Ryan Greene, KUSports.com editor

"It was a 'good win' which could have been a great win. While fans should certainly take pride in the victory, it's still a bit disturbing how much BC chipped into the lead in the second half. Putting teams away emphatically is still not a strongpoint for this team, and it has to become one.

Also deserving credit as a unit is the KU big men, who outscored BC 42-28 in the paint despite a 19-point, 15-rebound, seven-block effort from Eagles' junior stud Sean Williams.

And Mario Chalmers was simply phenomenal. Doing everything. What impressed me most was how well he used his body going to the rack against bigger defenders in the open court. There was one instance where he turned his body outwards going against 6-foot-7 Jared Dudley for a layup and made it look all too easy. Great game for him."

Inside the numbers

11: That's was how many assists KU totaled in the first half. While the Jayhawks finished with just 15 for the game, the extra pass was almost always the perfect pass for the young offense in the game's first 20 minutes, exposing Boston College left and right in the transition game.

7: That's how many points KU's three freshmen combined for in the loss. All seven were scored by Darrell Arthur, who was limited to just 18 minutes after getting into foul trouble, despite KU playing a zone defense. Sherron Collins and Brady Morningstar combined to play just 10 minutes. Collins, coming off of one of his best games of the year, was 0-for-1 from the field.

4: That's how many three-pointers Boston College hit. Not a killer, except for the fact that those four makes came on 19 attempts. That made coming back from a 22-point halftime deficit that much tougher.

Just in case you missed it...

The zone defense KU opted into during the first half completely took Jared Dudley away from being a dominant offensive force, which he usually is. Dudley had a more-than-quiet 14 points and eight rebounds, and didn't score at all during BC's late comeback to get the game at one point within a margin of 13. KU's defensive pressure in the first half was mostly what created the split on the scoreboard.

-Also, on the lighter side of things, there was a funny little stretch early in the second half with a pair of blown dunks. First, Julian Wright went under the rim from left to right with his right hand, and while trying to throw the ball home, stuffed it against the front of the rim and fell to the floor. But all of those KU fans shaking their heads got a nice giggle just seconds later when BC's Sean Marshall - the teams' third-leading scorer who struggled all day en route to just five points - soared through the lane, cocked the ball back and did the same thing from a straight-on angle. That's a sequence you don't see every day.

Hopefully you didn't miss it...

Brandon Rush started this game the way KU fans have been expecting him to start games on a nightly basis. Rush finished the game with 15 points, but he scored seven big ones early on that helped give KU some sort of flow during a first 10 minutes to the game which were anything but smooth.

They said it...

Bill Self on the decision to go with the zone: "I thought at the rate were were going, we were goiang to foul our whole team out...We didn't want to do that, but the way they run their flex, and you guys saw, they run it so tight...We just felt also like the zone would extend the possessions...We do practice it, believe it or not, 10 minutes every other day, and today it paid off."

Russell Robinson on KU losing grip of the big lead in the second half: "We don't have that killer instinct yet, but I think that is something that is going to come. We had them down big, and no disrespect to Boston College, but this should have been a game that everyone was able to play in. We just need to keep working hard in practice, and I think that killer instinct will come."

Julian Wright on the effectiveness of KU's zone defense: "We were able to just go out there and use our length to our advantage, make sure they didn't play behind our heads. We were just able to not lose too much by playing a zone, and that's not what we play all the time game in and game out."

Julian Wright on KU weathering Boston College's second half surge: "It's just us communicating, talking. We just knew they were a good team and were going to make a run, so we just wanted to try and at least meet them half way by playing the defense and sticking to our defensive principles."

Mario Chalmers on the KU backcourt's defensive presence: "It was a big key for us because Boston College is a good team, and they like to pound the ball inside, and once we took that away they kind of struggled."