Orlando, Fla. — Kansas didn’t allow 10 straight points late in the first half against UCF just because it had center Hunter Dickinson sitting on the bench with two early fouls.
The last four minutes of the first period Wednesday — during which KU coach Bill Self ultimately said, together with the first three minutes of the second half, “the game was lost, or the game was won, depending on which side you’re on” — saw plenty go wrong for the Jayhawks.
UCF’s Darius Johnson leapt to save the rebound off his own missed free throw and got it to Jaylin Sellers for a 3-pointer. Dajuan Harris Jr. threw an off-balance pass out of bounds trying to make a play late in the shot clock. Kevin McCullar Jr. missed a layup. And so on.
But a couple of KU’s miscues involved backup center Parker Braun, Dickinson’s replacement — a block at the rim by Omar Payne, a pass from KJ Adams off Braun’s fingertips — and the Jayhawks could certainly have used another offensive option, let alone one as potent as Dickinson, during their scoring drought of three minutes and 43 seconds.
“We got to do a better job helping him not get in foul trouble, us guards, guarding the ball a little better so they’re not going in and driving it at him,” McCullar said postgame, following what became an ugly 65-60 road loss.
Granted, even with the foul trouble, the Jayhawks did get 27 minutes of Dickinson, not too terribly less than his previous season average of 32 (albeit a number skewed somewhat by two early blowouts against mid-majors). And in that time the center, who had been averaging 19.4 points per game, turned in 12 with a startlingly low four rebounds, when his previous season-low total was eight — in short, he wasn’t up to his usual stellar standard when he was on the floor.
As it turned out, the foul trouble wasn’t the only reason Dickinson didn’t get going, as Self revealed postgame when asked if he felt he should have put his center back in earlier.
“I don’t know, because he’s got a bad knee,” Self said. “If he didn’t have a bad knee I’d say yes for sure.”
Self added that the coaching staff had entered the game with the mindset of attempting to limit Dickinson’s minutes.
“He told me even in the first half when things were going well that he was really laboring,” he said.
Self later clarified that Dickinson’s injury was simply a bruised knee, and projected confidence about the ailment, but did say with regard to whether he’ll have to monitor it going forward, “I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“We’ve been really fortunate, knock on wood, with our health so far, because we don’t have a lot of depth,” Self said. “You’re going to go through periods of time this season where guys get dinged up.”
Any time in a game spent playing without Dickinson, an All-American candidate, for whatever reason, is a severe detriment to the Jayhawks’ offensive potency. On Thursday he was of course just five days removed from scoring 30 points and a game-winner against TCU.
McCullar said the team needs to know how to play when he’s not on the floor.
“In big games, you never know who’s going to go down or be in foul trouble,” he said.
Inserting Braun wasn’t Self’s only approach. KU didn’t have much more success early in the second half after Dickinson’s third foul, when instead of returning to Braun initially, it channeled its 2022-23 lineup for more than three minutes by playing the 6-foot-7 Adams as an undersized center.
“It was just a call,” Self said. “We thought the ball wasn’t moving and one thing about him, when KJ’s at the 5, we know from past experience if you’ve watched us play that the ball does move better when KJ’s at the 5.”
On this occasion, for one reason or another, the lineup didn’t really pan out. The free throws following Dickinson’s third foul, two and a half minutes into the second half, cut KU’s lead to 39-34. By the time Parker Braun came in to restore a true center to the lineup, UCF was about to tie the game at 43. When Dickinson returned to the fold with 12:36 to go, KU trailed 48-44.
On the night, Dickinson’s plus-minus rating of plus-5 trailed only freshman Johnny Furphy’s plus-7, a rudimentary illustration of his impact even in a game when he wasn’t at his best.
AP Photo/John Raoux
