A basketball team doesn’t make it all the way to second in the national rankings without compiling some amazing numbers along the way. It’s time to have some fun with data created by the entertaining Kansas University basketball team.
The 10 most remarkable numbers in reverse order, so as to build the drama, associated with a very balanced, deep team:
1. Walk-on Jordan Juenemann has hit 80 percent of his three-pointers, making 4 of 5. He has scored 14 points in 28 minutes.
2. Kansas has had a player foul out of a game just twice. Markieff Morris was limited to 19 minutes against UCLA. Jeff Withey was whistled for his fifth personal after playing 14 minutes against UMKC.
3. Seven different players have had at least a share of the team lead in scoring in a game: Marcus Morris (11 times), Markieff Morris (five), Tyrel Reed (three), Josh Selby (three), Thomas Robinson (two), Tyshawn Taylor (two), Brady Morningstar (one).
4. Eight different players have had at least a share of the team assists lead in at least one game: Taylor (14), Morningstar (seven), Selby (five), Elijah Johnson (two), Reed (two), Travis Releford (one), Marcus Morris (one), Markieff Morris (one).
5. KU ranks No. 1 in the nation in field-goal accuracy, hitting 52 percent, and is eighth in field-goal percentage defense (.383).
6. Tyshawn Taylor hasn’t let his recent shooting struggles — 6-for-26 from the field (23 percent) in the past four games — impair his shooting from the free-throw line. He’s hit 88 percent from the line in Big 12 play.
7. In Big 12 play, the three post players who get the majority of the minutes (the twins and Robinson) are shooting a combined .647 from the field. Marcus ranks 10th in the nation with a .603 percentage.
8. The Jayhawks are shooting a remarkable .507 (37-for-73) on three-point shots in the past four games. Another way of looking at it: They have scored 111 points on 73 shots. Generating more points than that shooting two-point field goals would require making 56 of 73 shots (.767 percent). Kansas has shot .558 (24-of-43) from long range in the past two games.
9. In the past 10 games, Morningstar has 38 assists and five turnovers, an assist-to-turnover ratio of 7.6-to-1. In the past two games, Morningstar has played 75 minutes and has 13 assists without turning it over once.
“Brady is playing the best basketball I’ve seen him play since I have been here,” Marcus Morris said of Morningstar after Monday night’s 103-86 victory against Missouri in Allen Fieldhouse.
10. The Jayhawks are 56-4 in the past two seasons, a winning percentage of .933. Every game has a winner and a loser and less than seven percent of the time, fans of KU’s foes were able to turn their televisions off in a good mood. That, of course, means that more than 93 percent of the time, KU fans turned off their TV sets and drove home in great moods, right? There is no such thing as being in a bad mood after your team wins, is there?
The only losses: at Tennessee, at Oklahoma State, against Northern Iowa in Oklahoma City, against Texas in Allen Fieldhouse. In games played outside the state of Oklahoma, Kansas is 55-2 the past two seasons.