Column: Brannen Greene has ups and downs in road win

By Tom Keegan     Jan 29, 2015

KANSAS 64, TCU 61

Nick Krug
Kansas guard Brannen Greene gives a few claps before shooting a pair of free throws late in the second half at Wilkerson-Greines Activity Center on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015 in Fort Worth, Texas.

Box score

? Let’s see, sophomore Brannen Greene contributed five points, a big blocked shot and a rebound in the final 32 seconds of Kansas University’s 64-61 Wednesday night victory against TCU, so why did it seem as if every time he turned around he was doing something wrong?

Well, because he pretty much was until making 5 of 6 free throws at the end, and he was the first to knock down his good plays by explaining he only had the opportunity to do so because he set them up with bad plays.

“I should have got the rebound to start with, so I got lucky to get the block,” Greene said of a block that came after Terry Zeigler’s offensive rebound. “It was a decent block, but I should have got the rebound.”

Zeigler almost came away with the rebound again until Jamari Traylor ripped it from him.

On the topic of rebounds, TCU had 26 offensive boards, an alarming number.

“Some of that was my fault,” Greene said. “Some of that was other players’ fault. We should have done better. We didn’t come out with the energy and focus we should have, like coach said.”

Greene’s not ever a guy you don’t notice on the floor. He makes plays, good ones and bad ones, but he never fades into the background, especially late in close games.

“Brannen made a couple of plays, but he also, not just him, the whole team, just didn’t play very smart,” Kansas coach Bill Self said.

“It’s hard for me to get excited about anybody who played tonight. For us to say, ‘Let’s point out positives,’ the best player in the game for us per minute was Landen Lucas.”

Or Frank Mason III, who took over the game for a stretch, looking like Barry Sanders darting through tiny holes on his way to the hoop, where he angled his body to finish, or like Mario Chalmers perfectly arcing teardrops and hitting a couple of jumpers.

But the man who seldom misses a free throw late in the game, missed a pair. Nobody, it seemed, was immune from mental lapses.

Greene shared the coach’s post-game message.

“It was just that we have to get better,” Greene said. “We can’t play like that. We thought we were building from Texas, I mean we still are, but if we want to keep building, keep building, we can’t have any more performances like this. I mean, we all agreed, we’ve got to do better.”

Too high on themselves after the remarkably clean performance at Texas on Saturday, the Jayhawks played sluggishly in the Wilkerson-Greines Activities Center, an arena where high school games typically are played. Every seat had a chairback, but a bright-lights building it is not.

“That might have contributed to it a little bit. It felt like it wasn’t as big of a game, kind of like a preseason game, but that’s no excuse,” Greene said. “We still have to play better than what we did.”

It had trap-game written all over it, but since TCU made just 15 of 29 free throws, Kansas survived.


More news and notes from Kansas at TCU


PREV POST

The Day After: Trouble at TCU

NEXT POST

45977Column: Brannen Greene has ups and downs in road win