Some thoughts…from Allen Fieldhouse
Gary Bedore, Journal-World KU men’s basketball beat writer
“It was a nice bounceback victory for the Jayhawks, who pounded KSU in Huggins’ first game in Allen Fieldhouse.
Brandon Rush was great the first half and KU did a nice job not letting Cartier Martin get started.
It was a perfect night for the Jayhawks, and classy move by Self not letting somebody jack up a late three to try to score 100 on the ‘Cats.
Darnell Jackson was great, as was Darrell Arthur, and Sherron Collins was amazing again.
It was a very nice victory for the Jayhawks, who now are off to Missouri.”
Tom Keegan, Journal-World sports editor
“Kansas State has made great strides under new coach Bob Huggins, but the Wildcats are a year away from cracking into the Big 12 elite, which at the moment is a two-team club, with a third, Texas, knocking on the door.
What separates Kansas and Texas A&M from Texas is that the two elite teams play serious defense and Texas, as it showed in a homecourt loss to K-State, plays defense the way most really young teams play it, which is to say not very well at all.”
Ryan Greene, KUSports.com editor
“Isn’t it amazing how much smoother an entire offense seems to flow when the big men can score consistently?
Between Sasha Kaun, Julian Wright, Darrell Arthur and Darnell Jackson, the KU bigs went 19-of-29 from the field (20-of-30 if you include Matt Kleinmann’s little baby hook, though Kaun still ended the night by clanking three straight free throws).
What made the forwards so effective was the continued excellent penetration from the guards, namely Sherron Collins, who had a game-high seven assists. He’s developing in front of everyone’s eyes and is proving that come postseason time, he could very well be the glue that holds this team together.”
Inside the numbers
0: That’s how many points K-State’s leading scorer, senior Cartier Martin, scored in the first half. By the time he scored the first of his 11 second half points, the game’s outcome was hardly in question. Therefore, the Wildcats’ top producer didn’t score a single meaningful point. KU should hang one of its hats on that.
16.8: That’s the difference in percentage points between the 39.1 percent K-State shot and the 55.9 percent clip KU fired at from the field. Again, plenty of that was from stellar penetration into the paint by the Jayhawk guards.
3: K-State freshman 7-foot-3 behemoth Jason Bennett had three blocked shots, but those were the only stats he registered in 11 scoreless minutes before fouling out with 8:20 left in the game. Taking him out of the game was big in KU’s quest to assert itself offensively around the hoop.
15: That’s how many first half points Brandon Rush had for KU, finishing the game with 18. That second half doesn’t mean much, though, as Rush proved again that when he’s hitting right off the bat, the Jayhawks are able to mount impressive starts. That was the case again Wednesday.
26: You’ve got to give some credit to K-State senior Jermaine Maybank, who hardly averages a dent in the point column for the Wildcats. He scored a career-high 26 points, besting his previous top total by 19.
In case you missed it…
The Jayhawks, true to form, once again started the game on an absolute tear coming off of a loss. Bill Self pointed out in the post game press session that his team was aching to play anybody after Saturday. K-State’s mere presence must have added quite a bit of fuel to that fire, as the Jayhawks opened up a 15-2 lead to start the game, including seven points from Brandon Rush. KU never let up, either, tying its season-high point total of 97.
Hopefully you didn’t miss it…
The slimmer, more confident Sherron Collins continues to be KU’s motor off the bench. Anyone calling for him to start ahead of Russell Robinson or Mario Chalmers is obviously not noticing that the three play nearly identical minutes (On Wednesday: Collins 28, Chalmers 30, Robinson 28). Starting or not, he’s been KU’s most important piece during conference season, and he probably wanted a win more than anyone after his coming-of-age performance Saturday wound up coming up short in the final product.
