NEW YORK – Matt Brust called it “aggressive” basketball.
That’s putting it mildly. Wednesday night’s Kansas-St. John’s ECAC Holiday Festival championship basketball game – won by the Redmen, 70-56, in Madison Square Garden – more resembled a Central park mugging than an athletic endeavor.
In all, Kansas was tooted for 31 fouls to St. John’s 23. The Jayhawks, who entered the game as 61.2 percent free throw shooters, converted 19 of 31 charities to the Redmen’s 32 of 49.
“We played a complete game,” Brust said. “Kansas is a team that’s not going to beat themselves, so it was very imprtant for us to be aggressive, which we were successful in doing.”
Brust, who had just two points in a 63-54 loss to KU on Dec. 5 in Lawrence, totaled 14 Wednesday. He also grabbed nine boards.
KU, led by Marvin Branch’s 12 boards, did win the rebounding battle, 39-37.
“It was physical,” said Branch, who scored eight points. “There weere a lot of fouls, not many were called on them. But that’s the way it went tonight. We’ll come back from this.”
“It was a hard game to enjoy when there were 80 foul shots taken,” said KU coach Larry Brown.
Brown said the turning point came with 6:55 left when St. John’s reserve Elander Lewis missed a jumper, but followed his shot and put in a two-footer. That bucket upped the Redmen’s 54-48 lead to eight tallies. It also started a 7-0 spurt that put the Jayhawks away.
“The biggest play was the man who took the jumper and put it back in,” Brown said. “Shelton Jones (17 points) was terrific. They were much deeper than they were in Lawrence.”
It didn’t help KU that 6-10 senior Danny Manning hit just eight of 17 shots while playing 32 minutes. He finished with four fouls and was in trouble much of the night.
“He didn’t play well. He got 24 points, but not his best 24,” Brown said. “We didn’t shoot well. We came in as the nation’s best shooting team and didn’t shoot well here.”
Notes
The all-tournament team was made up of KU’s Manning, St. John’s Brust and Boo Harvey, Marist’s Rik Smits and Memphis State’s Elliot Perry. The MVP was Jones…Manning went an identical eight of 17 in both games…