No. 3 Kansas and No. 9 Oklahoma both found themselves casualties of a wild week in college basketball.
Within a matter of hours Wednesday night, each school lost on the road to an unranked Big 12 Conference foe: OU at TCU, KU at UCF.
Those unexpected results came on the heels of No. 2 Houston’s loss at Iowa State Tuesday, to say nothing of the chaos unfolding in other conferences: No. 1 Purdue couldn’t come close against Nebraska, No. 5 Tennessee fell short against Mississippi State and No. 11 Marquette, the only team to beat KU in nonconference play, got outscored by 14 in the second half of a loss to Butler.
In short, it has not been a good week to have a low number next to one’s name.
The Jayhawks fell 65-60 to a team playing its first-ever Big 12 Conference home game despite leading 35-19 in the first half. Eighteen turnovers, nagging foul trouble for center Hunter Dickinson and a tight UCF zone defense derailed KU’s attack.
“It wasn’t more losing to UCF — obviously they weren’t picked to win the conference by a lot of people — but I think it’s more of losing up 16 on the road,” Dickinson said Friday. “… Up 16, I think that foul that I had (on Darius Johnson) was probably the biggest regret of the game. I still go back to that and wish that’s the one thing I could take back.”
The upset losses have robbed the KU-OU matchup Saturday afternoon at Allen Fieldhouse of some of its luster, but they have done nothing to diminish the stakes. As KU coach Bill Self pointed out after his team’s upset loss, it feels like teams are already playing must-win games in the Big 12 just one week into their conference schedules.
“We’re coming in with the same mentality that we had after the Marquette loss (73-59 at the Maui Invitational),” Dickinson said. “Obviously we had about 12 hours to kind of try to regroup after that loss, but now we have a little bit more time, but the same mentality of trying to make one not be two.”
Oklahoma may be playing with house money to a somewhat greater extent than Kansas, which had been picked to win the conference and was the AP’s preseason No. 1 team. OU, on the other hand, slotted in at just 12th in the Big 12’s preseason poll but fashioned itself into a national contender with victories over Iowa and USC at the Rady Children’s Invitational over Thanksgiving, then beat Providence and Arkansas for good measure to start December.
It’s created quite a strong resume for the Sooners, who haven’t made the tournament yet under Porter Moser but have benefited from the progression of a handful of young players, combined with the emergence of Siena transfer Javian McCollum. McCollum is leading the team in scoring with 14.9 points per game as he shoots 39.8% from deep, and adds an average of four assists.
“If he gets six open looks he can make four, back-to-back-to-back-to-back,” Self said.
Most of the rest of OU’s numbers don’t jump off the page. Sophomore guard Otega Oweh is the only other player scoring double-digit points (14.3). But Self said he and Jalon Moore could be “two of the best 10 athletes in the league, maybe two of the best five, I don’t know.”
And what the Sooners have been besides more athletic is well-rounded — eight players play at least 18 minutes, and all eight score at least six points — and defensively solid (64.3 points allowed per game).
What they aren’t is particularly careful with the ball, as they turn the ball over 13.1 times per game — they did so 18 times, a familiar number for KU fans, in their lone nonconference loss to North Carolina.
Of course, they also force 13.3 turnovers per game, and the Jayhawks’ inability to hold onto the ball for two games in a row will likely remain a dominant storyline ahead of Saturday’s matchup.
It’s a valuable chance for KU to course-correct in front of a friendly crowd before a challenging week that will see it travel to both Oklahoma State and West Virginia, one of just two times all season it will play consecutive road games.
No. 3 Kansas Jayhawks (13-2, 1-1 Big 12) vs. No. 9 Oklahoma Sooners (13-2, 1-1 Big 12)
• Allen Fieldhouse, Lawrence, 1 p.m.
• Broadcast: ESPN+
• Radio: Jayhawk Radio Network (in Lawrence, KLWN AM 1320 / K269GB FM 101.7 / KKSW FM 105.9)
Furphy’s opportunity
Strong showings against Missouri and Wichita State provided hope that highly touted freshman Elmarko Jackson was settling into the pace of collegiate play and becoming a bona fide fifth starter, but he has taken a substantial step back since Big 12 play began. In 46 combined minutes against TCU and UCF, he did not score a point and only tallied two rebounds and five assists with four fouls and three turnovers.
It was always going to be a learning curve for Jackson, who grew up playing lacrosse and has only begun to channel his sky-high athleticism, but his struggles were rendered particularly striking at UCF because fellow freshman Johnny Furphy (nine points, four rebounds, a steal and an assist) was so much more effective off the bench. The Jayhawks started out down 7-0 with Jackson in and then scored 21 of the next 26 points with Furphy.
Self called one transition dunk by Furphy “about as athletic (as) anybody that we’ve ever had,” adding that even Christian Braun didn’t look like that as a freshman.
In turn, Self also said Friday that Furphy will start against Oklahoma.
“We’re going to try something different and we’ll see how that goes,” he said, later adding that Furphy “has been playing probably more consistently well here of late, and certainly looked to be more aggressive.”
Self, who has frequently repeated that he is more concerned with who finishes a game than who starts it, stressed that the change is a minor one. But it represents only the second modification to KU’s starting lineup all year after 15 games — Furphy started one previous game against Chaminade when KJ Adams had just flown into Hawaii — and provides a chance for the Australian to cement a larger role.
From Jackson, Self said he’ll continue to expect aggressive play and athleticism off the bench.
Dickinson’s injury
Self revealed after the UCF game that Dickinson had been dealing with a bruised knee that hampered his play. He added Friday that his center picked up the injury against TCU, and “should be fine, no excuses.”
Dickinson, for his part, said “I think ibuprofen’s my friend right now, and Biofreeze (pain relief gel), that’s always been my friend since I’ve been in college.”
“It does hurt a lot, I’m not going to lie, but I feel like I’m pretty resilient,” Dickinson said, adding that foul trouble limited him more than the knee issue. “I’m definitely going to play through it.”
He said he practiced in full Friday.
He’ll be challenged again facing a Sooners frontcourt headlined by starter Sam Godwin and key bench contributor John Hugley IV, both of whom Self praised by name.
AP Photo/John Raoux
