Nick KrugNo. 5 Kansas Jayhawks (12-1) at Iowa State Cyclones (11-2)
Time: 4 p.m. | Location: Hilton Coliseum, Ames, Iowa
TV: ESPN2 | Radio: IMG Jayhawk Radio Network
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1. In-game adjustments a must
Because the Cyclones feature a roster of a bunch of new players, the Jayhawks’ familiarity with ISU’s personnel could be at an all-time low.
Add to that the fact that KU coach Bill Self called this Iowa State squad a “much, much improved team than what they had last year. So many new faces and all of those new faces have delivered for them,’ and it’s easy to see that some of what the Cyclones do could catch Kansas off guard in this one.
For four years, when Kansas faced Iowa State and Georges Niang, the KU big men and coaches had a good idea of Niang’s strengths and weaknesses. And that was true with so many other ISU players throughout the years.
This time around, however, the Jayhawks could have to use their timeouts and the break at halftime to tweak their game plan, perhaps more so than at any time this year.
Beyond that, KU will be facing an ISU team playing with star guard Lindell Wigginton, who had been out with an injury, for just the fourth time this season, making a lot of what the Jayhawks have seen on film less than helpful.
“I guess you could say it’s tougher because key players on their team have only played in a couple of games,” Self said. “So, yeah, you could be watching games from five games ago and that’s not the team that will play against us. But we’ll still have a general idea of what they do.”
2. Making 3s more important than just taking them
Granted it was in a losing effort, but the Oklahoma Sooners on Wednesday night at Allen Fieldhouse offered up a decent blueprint for how to defend KU’s offense.
In short, the strategy was basically this: Pack it in and dare the Jayhawks to beat you from the outside.
And that plan might have worked had it not been for KU’s stellar defense and extreme advantage in transition and fastbreak points. The Sooners lost by just seven and the Jayhawks, who have struggled to shoot the ball from the outside for most of the season, made just four of 21 3-point attempts.
After the victory, KU coach Bill Self called KU’s 3-point woes “worrisome,” and stressed that Kansas needed to find someone to join Lagerald Vick in being a consistent shooter from behind the arc. If they don’t, KU big men Udoka Azubuike and Dedric Lawson will continue to find the area near the rim crowded with bodies and offering little room to operate.
It may still be early, but if the issue does not improve sooner rather than later, you might see Self and his staff try to draw up other ways to score that don’t involve giving guys the green light from 3-point range. For now, though — and probably forever — Self will be fine with his players shooting open 3-pointers. You can’t turn those down, particularly if they come within the flow of the offense and from quality ball movement.
The Jayhawks simply have to make them when they take them or look elsewhere for points.
Iowa State is allowing opponents to shoot 34.9 percent from 3-point range, which ranks 136th nationally and is slightly worse than the national average of 34.0 percent.
Kansas, meanwhile, is shooting 34.4 percent, which is a tick better than the national average of 34.1 percent, but players not named Lagerald Vick are shooting it at a clip of less than 30 percent during KU’s past five games.
3. Value the ball
While KU curbed OU’s strategy by scoring 34 points either off of Oklahoma turnovers or in transition, things might not come as easily in this one.
The Cyclones, with their guard-heavy approach, rank 12th in the country in turnovers on offense, giving the ball away just 15.2 percent of the time. That number is made even more impressive by the fact that ISU only allows opponents to steal the ball on 6.3 percent of possessions, which ranks seventh nationally.
The Cyclones sit nearly 5 percentage points below the national average, which has teams turning it over on 19.1 percent of their possessions.
Long story short, KU should not expect to get as many free baskets in transition as they did against the Sooners four nights ago, both because the game is on the road and because ISU takes much better care of the ball than OU, which is closer to the average (18.7) in terms of giving the ball away.
Because of that, KU has to make sure it takes care of the ball when it has it, because making up for bad offensive possessions with volume won’t be as easy to do in this one.
KU’s size vs. Iowa State’s 4-guard lineup
While the overall team height between these two squads is closer than one might think, with Iowa State’s roster actually standing four inches taller than KU’s, the height advantage is merely an indication of the fact that the KU guards will be facing taller Iowa State guards while ISU’s lineup will have its hands full with KU’s taller front line.
That reality poses problems both ways and should make this one a bit of a chess match between Self and ISU coach Steve Prohm, who has maintained Iowa State’s approach of going with smaller, spread-you-out lineups that can shoot and attack all over the floor and force opposing big men to play in space.
For Kansas, that means figuring out how to play Udoka Azubuike and Dedric Lawson together.
While the two KU big men will start the game and will look to take advantage of their size and length against an overmatched ISU front line, the Cyclones’ style, if it’s clicking, could create a situation where Self has to decide how much he wants play Azubuike and Lawson at the same time.
His other option, of course, is to use sophomore guard Marcus Garrett — or potentially even K.J. Lawson — who matches up better with the ISU personnel.
And it’s likely that we’ll see KU run both looks onto the floor.
The question isn’t what will KU do. The question is how effective will KU be when it has a clear size advantage? If the answer to that is “very effective,” KU’s chances go up substantially.
If the answer is “not that effective at all,” then KU could find itself scrambling to keep pace with Iowa State’s style, which we’ve seen plenty of times in the past.
It’s awfully early in the Big 12 season for a game of this magnitude, let alone in a building as big time as Hilton Coliseum.
And, yeah, it’s a pretty weird tip time, too. But today’s game is the first of what could be many clashes between two of the top teams in the conference, with KU in position to gain an early upper hand in its chase for a 15th consecutive Big 12 title and the Cyclones in position to make an early statement that they are legit contenders to KU’s crown.
“It’ll be as hard an atmosphere as we play in,” Self said of Hilton after Wednesday’s win over OU. “I mean, there won’t be any better atmosphere that we play in than Ames and it’s like that every time we go up there. … Arizona State was a good atmosphere, but this’ll be even better than Arizona State and (we’ll) see how much poise we have to play in that.”
Kansas leads the all-time series with Iowa State, 181-64, dating back to 1908. However, the teams have split the past 10 meetings, with all of them decided by seven points or fewer.
The Jayhawks are 70-39 all-time in games played in Ames, Iowa, including a 26-21 mark at Hilton Coliseum.
Las Vegas lists Iowa State as a one-point favorite and the game is one of three on the rest of KU’s schedule in which KenPom.com predicts a Kansas loss. All three are road games — at Iowa State, at Kentucky and at Texas Tech — and the prediction models have all three games decided by a single possession.
No. 5 Kansas
G – Devon Dotson, 6-2, 185, Fr.
G – Quentin Grimes, 6-5, 210, Fr.
G – Lagerald Vick, 6-5, 190, Sr.
F – Dedric Lawson, 6-9, 235, Jr.
C – Udoka Azubuike, 7-0, 270, Jr.
Iowa State
G – Lindell Wigginton, 6-2, 189, Soph.
G – Marial Shayok, 6-6, 198, Sr.
G – Tyrese Haliburton, 6-5, 172, Fr.
G – Nick Weiler-Babb, 6-5, 205, Sr.
F – Michael Jacobsen, 6-9, 230, Jr.
