Nick KrugAn already tough task of taking down the nation’s 15th-ranked team became decidedly more difficult, both before and during Tuesday’s Kansas basketball game at Allen Fieldhouse.
But after a sluggish start and a halftime deficit, the ninth-ranked Jayhawks proved they were up to the challenge, winning 62-61 in a thriller.
Sophomore guard Dajuan Harris Jr. hit an off-balance, driving layup inside of 10 seconds to play and the Jayhawks survived a 3-point attempt at the buzzer by ISU senior Gabe Kalscheur.
Kalscheur’s miss set off a wild celebration that spilled onto the court and could be heard and felt in all four corners of the venue.
Asked about his emotions after the victory, Harris shrugged and said simply, “I haven’t hit a game winner in so long.”
Asked if he was looking to be the hero when he caught the pass from senior guard Ochai Agbaji, who started the action by driving to the rim, Harris laughed and said: “There was five seconds left; I had to do something with it.”
KU (13-2 overall, 2-1 Big 12) led for most of the second half, but fell behind by a point (59-58) in the final minute on a second-chance, scramble jumper by Caleb Grill with 36 seconds to play. KU trailed again, two possessions later, after a jumper in transition by Izaiah Brockington that put Iowa State ahead in with 15.6 seconds left.
Two free throws by Agbaji erased one of the deficits and the falling-down-layup on a drive to his right by Harris proved to be the game winner.
All of that — and so much that came before it — came with senior guard Remy Martin out because of continued soreness in his right knee.
Freshman forward Zach Clemence showed up in a walking boot during the pregame warm-up and also did not play. And senior guard Jalen Coleman-Lands, who started the second half against his old teammates in Iowa State red went to the locker room midway through the second half after taking an elbow to the head on a flagrant foul.
As if that wasn’t enough, the Jayhawks started both halves with freshman forward KJ Adams making his first career start and holding down the 5 position.
“Our team just needs to piece it together right now until we figure out how we’re going to play,” Kansas coach Bill Self said after the victory. “But the guys hung in there and fought. I’m proud of them.”
Agbaji led all scorers with 22 points and said KU’s ability to pull out the hard-fought victory against a tenacious Cyclones squad was a prime example of what KU preaches day in and day out.
“Next man up mentality,” he said.
Junior Christian Braun, who finished with 13 points, said Tuesday’s victory was a perfect look at what Kansas can do.
“I think we’ve got a bunch of different looks we can put on the court,’ Braun said. “Defensively, I think we just turned it up a little bit (in the second half) and that’s what it takes to get wins in conference play.”
In the first half, it was Iowa State’s intensity that stole the show. The Cyclones (13-3, 1-3) led 19-10 early and still by five late in the half. But KU finished with a 3-pointer by Agbaji that cut the deficit to 33-31 at the break and then used a 12-2 run early in the second half to take control.
Iowa State closed the game with a series of gritty plays that led to points, but Kansas found a way to make sure those came in a losing effort.
“We guarded them really well in the second half and they made every shot,” Self said. “But we did enough and we hung in there.”
Tuesday’s victory came on a night when No. 19 Texas Tech knocked off No. 1 Baylor in Waco, giving the Bears’ their first conference loss and bringing KU back into a tie in the loss column atop the Big 12 standings.
Although they’re still just three games into what promises to be a grinder of an 18-game conference slate, Agbaji said Tuesday’s win was significant.
“It’s just good to be back in the race,” he said.
Added Self, when asked about his postgame conversation with first-year ISU coach T.J. Otzelberger: “I’ve known T.J. a long time. He’s done a great job there. It was just a good game. I asked him, ‘Who you got next?’ I think he said Texas (and I said), ‘This league is no joke.'”
Next up, Kansas will welcome West Virginia to Lawrence for a 1 p.m. tipoff on Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.
Nick KrugIt’s unlikely that George Mason basketball coach Kim English circled the names of Kansas reserves Mitch Lightfoot and Jalen Coleman-Lands on the white board during his final pregame talk with his team on Saturday.
But maybe he should’ve.
After weeks of watching the starting five — and, really, the team’s top two players — carry the KU offense, the sixth-ranked Jayhawks received a couple of much-needed contributions from their bench during Saturday’s 76-67 victory over George Mason at Allen Fieldhouse.
Coleman-Lands led everyone with 20 points on 7-of-9 shoooting, including 5-of-7 from 3-point range. And Lightfoot, in 21 minutes, made all seven of his shots and tied a career-high with 14 points. Together, the two shot 14-of-16 from the floor and combined for 34 points, six rebounds, four assists and just two turnovers.
“Our starters were terrific against Nevada and probably that poor today. And our bench was awful against Nevada and, as bad as it was, we were probably even better than that today,” KU coach Bill Self said after the victory. “We wouldn’t have won the game without probably either one of them and both of them, collectively, gave us a chance to win.”
Lightfoot’s performance, though highly efficient and nearly perfect, was not all that unusual. The sixth-year senior has had plenty of games in the past where he has come in for KU big man David McCormack and provided a scoring or rebounding spark.
“The buckets I was getting, they were all set up by my teammates,” said Lightfoot, who scored with a variety of jump hooks in the post and dunks on bursts to the basket. “They were the ones that allowed me to get easy baskets.”
Coleman-Lands, however, did a lot of the work on his own. And Self marveled at how much better the super-senior transfer performed when he focused on filling up the stat sheet and shooting the shots when they came to him, rather than dribbling too much and looking for the ones he wanted.
“Of the times he looked to score, how many times did he bounce it,” Self asked. “Not many. … He needs to shoot it whenever he’s open (because) he’s the best shooter on our team.”
Coleman-Lands’ 24:38 of playing time on Saturday was 10 minutes more than his output in any single game this season. Self said the fact that senior guard Remy Martin did not play because of a swollen knee made it easier to give Coleman-Lands more minutes. But Self also said he showed he deserved them.
Never one to complain about his usage, Coleman-Lands admitted that his prolonged time on the court allowed him a better opportunity to find his rhythm. Once he did, he was nearly unstoppable. There were shots in rhythm off the catch, step-backs off of one bounce. And even a couple of near-heat checks that never actually went up because of the George Mason defense’s understanding that it would probably fair better with Coleman-Lands not shooting.
Despite the strong days by KU’s two reserves, the Patriots (7-6) were in the game the entire way. A late first-half surge that featured a dunk by Christian Braun that just beat the halftime buzzer put Kansas up by 11 at the break. But GMU stuck around all the way down to the 3-minute mark. That’s when Lightfoot delivered what might have been his biggest play of the game.
With just over 3 minutes to play, and Kansas leading by just five, GMU forced a miss of a drive along the baseline by KU’s Ochai Agbaji. As the ball came off the rim, Lightfoot fought for it, secured the offensive rebound and fired a pass out to Braun, who let fly with a 3-pointer from the wing in front of the Kansas bench.
At first, it looked like the shot missed. But after a soft bounce, it circled the rim and fell through. That put Kansas up 69-61 with 3:11 remaining and effectively ended the game.
“Juan (Dajuan Harris), CB and Och and J-Will (Jalen Wilson), they were just out there,” Self said of four of his starters. “They didn’t play poorly, didn’t play well. So, we needed a spark.”
Coming off a month in which they became the first Jayhawks to average 20 points per game in a single month since Raef LaFrentz and Paul Pierce during the 1997-98 season, Agbaji and Braun combined for 25 points but on just 7-of-26 shooting.
KU big man David McCormack also struggled. He played just 11 minutes and missed all three shots he attempted, finishing with a -6 number in the plus/minus category. McCormack played just 4:17 in Saturday’s second half.
While KU’s starting five powered through an off day, Self left the arena pleased with the effort, both because his bench rose to the occasion and because Allen Fieldhouse was nearly full despite the game being scheduled a little more than 72 hours before tipoff.
Saturday’s game was supposed to be the Big 12 opener for Kansas against TCU, but COVID-19 issues with the Horned Frogs program led to that matchup being postponed.
“It was a win on New Year’s Day, so there’s absolutely nothing that we can be negative about,” Self said after the victory. “And the crowd was unbelievable. To have that many people at a game that was not part of the season ticket package, selling it in 72 hours, in minus-15 degree weather (with) ice all over the road and most of them have to come from distance; it’s just incredible to me that our people show up like they do. That was people that just love KU.”
Next up, KU (11-1) travels to Stillwater, Oklahoma, on Tuesday for an 8 p.m. clash with the Cowboys on ESPN2.
