Extra Minutes: Kansas 107, Niagara 67

By Ryan Greene     Mar 17, 2007

Some thoughts…From Chicago

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

“It was great for KU to get the monkey off its back in winning a first-round game after two failures.

It looked like it might be a long night when the game was tied at 14. But the Jayhawks did a nice job opening it up and bagging the runaway victory.

Mario was great in hitting eight of nine shots. Of course Collins was magnificent and Rush’s defense on Niagara’s Brown was outstanding after Julian wavered a bit early.

Nice win. Kentucky is a tough second round foe on Sunday. Good defense the ‘Cats play, you know.

Tom Keegan, Journal-World sports editor

“This wasn’t a basketball game, it was a 40-minute two-on-one fastbreak drill. If this were a boxing match, it would have been called in the second round and the ring would have remained blood-stained for months. The Kansas players were as good after the game as during it. Nobody sounded overconfident and they all knew a much tougher opponent awaits.”

Ryan Greene, KUSports.com editor

“Many experts said that would be the closest-played one-seed vs. 16-seed game of the tournament. It certainly lacked that feel once the KU players got used to the chilly conditions inside the United Center.

It’s hard to imagine a team in this day and age of college hoops who can score 107 points while having no one top the 20-point barrier. KU did it, though, and it all just looked so natural.

Of course, this was a 16-seed. Sunday will be when the real fun begins. But if the Jayhawks perform with the efficiency that they did Friday night, they’ll be awfully tough for any of the other 31 teams remaining to beat.”

Ryan Wood, Journal-World sports reporter

“Niagara’s only chance to win a game like this was to make it rain – three-pointers that is. Clif Brown hit two in the first four minutes, and the Purple Eagles misfired on their last 15 attempts. Yikes.

Combined with a giant athletic mismatch, a giant talent mismatch and a Kansas team feasting on the rattled Purple Eagles, it was as ugly as 1-16 games should be. It’s a survive-and-advance tournament, but KU feasted like kings on Friday.”

Inside the numbers

2: Niagara’s Clif Brown hit a pair of threes in the opening minutes, but that would be it on the night for the Purple Eagles’ second leading scorer, who had 32 points in the opening round win over Florida A&M Tuesday night. he was rendered ineffective most of the night when Brandon Rush switched onto him defensively following the first television timeout.

14: KU registered 14 steals on the night, with the backcourt trio of Sherron Collins, Mario Chalmers and Russell Robinson combining for 12 of them. It led to a bevy of transition points late in the first half and early in the second. KU had 27 points off of 21 Niagara turnovers.

107: The 107 points KU scored marked the third time the Jayhawks have done so since Bill Self has been the head coach in Lawrence. The last time was a year ago at the Maui Invitational against Chaminade. The first, coincidentally, was in Self’s first year in the Sweet 16 over UAB. It was also KU’s last NCAA Tournament win until Friday night.

6: Here’s balance for you: KU scored 107 points with six players scoring in double digits and none of them topping the 20-point mark. To go even further, the Jayhawks’ leading scorer, Brandon Rush, was not even one of the six to top 10 points. Though he had nine to go with six assists and five rebounds on a well-rounded 28 minutes on the floor.

Just in case you missed it…

Might as well go a little off-beat. Sherron Collins was awfully close to dunking the ball for the first time in a KU uniform. He went up to try and finish a lob with two hands on a fast break, with the pass coming from Mario Chalmers. It didn’t convert, though one of the highlights of the night was a Brady Morningstar dunk in transition to give him five points on the night. It might have come as a surprise to some KU fans, but the dunk was an art Morningstar frequently used at Free State.

Hopefully you didn’t miss it…

KU’s defense certainly wasn’t lacking, and not for a second did the Jayhawks appear to have overlooked an outmatched Niagara squad. They held the Purple Eagles’ leading scorer, Charron Fisher, scoreless in the first half, and after Clif Brown had eight early points, he had just four the rest of the way. It would be hard for anyone to score more than the 67 points Niagara did Friday the way KU defended.

They said it…

Sherron Collins on the game’s pace being in KU’s favor: “Pretty much just knowing that if we play lock down defense and make a team shoot bad shots, they miss shots and our bigs are able to get rebounds and we’re off to the races. We’re going to run everytime we get a chance to.”

Sherron Collins on not looking at his mother in the stands, avoiding any distraction while playing at home: “Nah, I tried not to. I mean, she’s my mother, but no distractions on the court.”

Darrell Arthur on the team taking a little bit to warm up: “Everybody was getting winded because it was a little cold out there, and we weren’t intense on defense starting out. When we got into the flow of it, we started playing good. We knew their bench wasn’t that deep, so we were just trying to attack them transition-wise and get them tired.”

Brandon Rush on taking Niagara’s Clif Brown out of the game with his defense: “Julian was backing off of him, letting him shoot the ball, so I felt like just pressure him a little bit, make him put it on the ground. Teammates dove on the ball, so he didn’t have much room to work with, so that’s how we took him out of the game.”

Jeremy Case on preparing his teammates to get past the first round: “Once we get past this first one, things are going to start rolling, everyone’s going to be relaxed, and I let them know that, that the first one is the toughest one, to get all the jitters out. After that, you just go play.”

Russell Robinson on Niagara forcing him to beat them with his shot: “Part of it is that they left me open. They left me with some open shots, forced me to make shots, and I did. My game came to me and I just took advantage.”

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