Kansas guard Zeke Mayo didn’t get to hear his name announced in the starting lineup on Monday night, along with the attendant cheer that would no doubt have accompanied his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas.
“For me it’s not about who starts or who finishes,” Mayo said postgame. “I’m blessed to get the opportunity to be in the game.”
He took full advantage of that opportunity off the bench against Howard, scoring 19 points on 7-for-12 shooting, including five 3-pointers, and still got to hear a measure of appreciation from the Allen Fieldhouse crowd: On three separate occasions, the student section began chanting his name.
“Yeah, of course I heard that,” Mayo said. “They were pretty loud. Like I said a long time ago, you know, it’s a blessing to be out here and play with these guys and wear this across my chest, obviously.”
The high-volume, high-confidence performance from Mayo, which saw him catch the Bison’s defenders off guard with a deadly step-back move and at one point hit back-to-back 3s, was quite a departure given that less than a week earlier head coach Bill Self consigned him to the bench to start an exhibiton game against Washburn for not shooting the ball enough in practice.
“I think he’s reluctant to shoot sometimes, but I thought tonight and the other game (the exhibition) he was more aggressive shooting the ball,” Self said of the senior transfer from South Dakota State. “I like it. He’s a weapon out there. He can knock it down.”
And he can get quite hot from the field, as teammate Hunter Dickinson explained to the media using a rather enlightening comparison.
“You know when you turn on the stove and you accidentally put it on high and you touch it on accident?” Dickinson said. “That’s how he is sometimes.”
“Great analogy, Hunt,” Mayo said with a laugh. “Great analogy.”
The Bison certainly got burned Friday. Mayo’s 5-for-8 showing from deep was unlike anything practically any Jayhawk managed at any point last season, as KU generally struggled from 3-point range in its disappointing 2023-24 campaign.
Mayo, for his part, said he hopes to shoot around 40% from beyond the arc this year.
He’ll be just one of a variety of pieces figuring into the Jayhawks’ offensive arsenal during the season. In the Washburn exhibition last week, transfers David Coit and Rylan Griffen had joined him in double figures as part of a 3-point bombardment; on Monday centers Dickinson and Flory Bidunga, splitting time as Dickinson returned from injury, helped pave the way for KU’s 30-point victory.
The next challenge for Mayo will come on Friday, when the Jayhawks take on ninth-ranked North Carolina, which features what Dickinson called “one of the best backcourts in the country.” If he can transfer his level of production to that caliber of competition, against players like RJ Davis and Elliot Cadeau, he may earn even greater adoration from the KU faithful.
“I love being out there with my teammates and playing in front of 15, 16,000,” Mayo said.
Nick Krug
