The Jayhawks trotted out some lineups on Saturday afternoon that could generously be described as creative.
With KJ Adams and Flory Bidunga in severe foul trouble throughout and Hunter Dickinson in a dicey position himself with three fouls midway through the second half, KU had to play far more four-guard lineups than usual and gave some key minutes to reserve forward Zach Clemence.
“It was kind of like a conveyor belt for us out there,” Dickinson said.
One constant amid all the strangeness was guard Zeke Mayo.
The Lawrence native and South Dakota State transfer played his best all-around offensive game as a Jayhawk, connecting on five 3-pointers and serving as KU’s only consistent means of penetrating the interior of the Wolfpack’s defense. He finished with a season-high 26 points, including five 3-pointers, and despite playing just 28 minutes, Dickinson added 21 with 14 rebounds and seven assists as the Jayhawks won 75-60.
No. 10 KU went 10-for-24 overall from beyond the arc. Point guard Dajuan Harris Jr. scored 15 points of his own with six more assists.
N.C. State got most of its offense from the strong play inside of forwards Brandon Huntley-Hatfield (12 points) and Ben Middlebrooks (14 points, seven rebounds).
“He had more shimmy, more wiggle in his game than what I thought,” KU coach Bill Self said of Middlebrooks. “I thought he did a really good job of hitching and doing some things to get guys off balance to give them angles and stuff like that. So I think he’s a good player.”
KU vastly exceeded its early intensity from either of its consecutive losses and opened up a 10-0 lead as Dickinson hit a 3-pointer, then set up Mayo for another on a nifty give-and-go. N.C. State opened 0-for-4 from the field and head coach Kevin Keatts had to call an early timeout.
The Jayhawks went up as far as 15-0 before Dontrez Styles connected from deep in a two-on-one opportunity at the 14:20 mark.
“We were ready to play to start the game,” Self said. “We played really well early, until about the 13-minute mark, and we dropped off a little bit after that.”
When KU went to the bench for the first time up 19-3, though, bringing in AJ Storr, Bidunga and eventually the long-injured (and former N.C. State) guard Shakeel Moore, it struggled to maintain its offensive pace. The Wolfpack scored nine straight before Harris earned his first points on a 3 from the wing.
“Obviously, they made a little bit of a run but we never folded and we didn’t feel satisfied with the lead that we had,” Mayo said. “We wanted to keep going.”
From there, N.C. State managed to keep its deficit hovering around seven or nine points down the stretch in the first half, aided by foul trouble for both Bidunga and Dickinson that prevented KU from threatening nearly as often in the post. On the other side of the ball, Huntley-Hatfield and Middlebrooks got deeper and deeper inside on each possession, with Huntley-Hatfield pushing a baby hook over Bidunga to make it 32-25 with three minutes to go.
Mayo responded with another 3-pointer, but Bidunga got dinged with his third foul on what became a three-point play for Marcus Hill. After a chaotic stretch of turnovers and bad misses, Mayo came through again with an and-1 that included KU’s first free throw attempt of the game.
“When we’re outscoring opponents and getting stops, the free throws aren’t really a necessity,” Mayo said, “but it is a nice little touch when we can get to the free throw line and get those free points.”
Added Self: “We’ve been the beneficiary of shooting more free throws than our opponents for 21 straight years, and it is tougher when teams average 11 more opportunities a game than what we get or something like that. So we got to find some way to stem the tide.”
Storr had a corner 3 rattle out at the buzzer and the Jayhawks went into the break up 38-30, having scored 19 points in the first 6:45 and just 19 more in the final 13:15.
KU inched slightly further ahead in the opening minutes of the second half and went up as many as 13 points on a putback by Dickinson, but then Middlebrooks got wide open under the basket after a loose ball and Dickinson prevented a layup with a flagrant foul. Middlebrooks made two free throws, Adams and Bidunga each got called for their respective third fouls on the following possession, and then Huntley-Hatfield hit twice more at the line to bring the Wolfpack within single digits.
“I was really disappointed, to be honest with you, because we let them catch it where they wanted to,” Self said, “and then we let them get to their strengths and we were undisciplined and jumped and reached and things like that instead of just making them make hard shots over us. We got to really improve on that, but obviously we didn’t do a good job in that area at all.”
After a chaotic and foul-laden stretch, Mayo drained a corner 3 to put KU back up 51-41 with 13 minutes to go as part of a solo 6-0 run. He pumped up the crowd as Keatts had to call another timeout.
The Jayhawks lost some of their defensive edge as the half wore on, but generally had an answer with Mayo or Dickinson. Dickinson scored six straight to bring KU’s advantage to 17 points with four minutes to go.
The Jayhawks, who improved to 8-2, will host Brown on Dec. 22 for their final game before the start of conference play.
“We need to practice,” Self said. “You know it’s finals week so that’ll take precedence over everything. But we need to practice and get better before Dec. 31 (the start of Big 12 play against West Virginia). So this’ll be good. We’re not going to crush our guys by any stretch or whatever but the things that we need to get in for conference play, probably some of those will be this week.”
