At a point in the schedule when teams are prone to sleepy play, the Kansas men’s basketball team instead woke all the way up.
Charged with turning in one more strong performance before a lengthy holiday break, the Jayhawks scored 51 points by halftime, their highest-scoring half of the season, and didn’t let up all that much after the break on their way to a 90-61 victory over Davidson on Monday night at Allen Fieldhouse.
“There’s definitely been times right before Christmas — obviously everybody’s ready to go home a little bit — it starts to kind of feel like a job, but it’s really not,” redshirt sophomore guard Jamari McDowell said. “We had a great time tonight, so we were super excited to get out there and play one last time before the second season, so that was good to see.”
All five KU starters reached double digits in scoring, and they were joined by freshman wing Kohl Rosario, who scored 13 in 18 minutes.
“You kind of always know it’s there, you just kind of wait until it comes to light,” McDowell said of the balanced scoring effort.
Flory Bidunga and Tre White led the way with 18 points and eight rebounds apiece and McDowell added a career-best 10.
“I thought this is the best we’ve looked — don’t you guys think? — offensively,” KU coach Bill Self said. “The ball moved, and (we) played with pace. I thought we did some good things, guarded fairly well and rebounded well the first half, not as well late. I thought we looked pretty good.”
Darryn Peterson sat out his second straight game due to cramping issues and has played just four times this season. Self said Peterson is doing well but that Self and Peterson’s family both “want him to be as close to 100% as possible when he comes back, and he’s just not quite there yet.”
Roberts Blums was the top scorer for Davidson with 13 points as the Wildcats played 13 players. They made 11 3-pointers as a team but committed 16 turnovers and lost the battle on the boards.
“I did think our hands were more active and we got our hands on more basketballs tonight, which led to some transition deals,” Self said.
Added Rosario: “Obviously we haven’t forced turnovers in the past, and we changed our defense for this game. We were really excited to, again, go into this Christmas, and we think our identity today was really the defense, and that led into offense as well.”
McDowell opened the game with a 3-pointer for the Jayhawks, who played at high speed from the opening whistle but squandered a couple of early transition opportunities. Davidson flustered Bidunga early with some double-teams in the post and trailed just 9-6 at the first media timeout.
Self left in both forwards on his first substitution, bringing in Elmarko Jackson for Jamari McDowell instead, and the decision paid off as Bidunga and Bryson Tiller scored once each to prompt an immediate 30-second timeout by Davidson.
Those buckets were part of a 10-0 run as the Wildcats went scoreless for more than four minutes before Blums sank a deep jumper (ruled a 2-pointer). Melvin Council Jr. promptly responded by finishing at the rim through a foul. He completed a three-point play to put KU ahead 22-8.
White hit a pair of 3-pointers in quick succession and drove for another layup, but Davidson’s offense began to pick up considerable momentum, scoring on five consecutive possessions with a pair of 3s to nearly double the Wildcats’ point total from 13 to 25 and cut their deficit to 11.
Davidson came out of a timeout with a 1-3-1 zone, which KU promptly exploited with a lob dunk by Rosario. After Council turned it over on an ill-advised throwaway, Jayden Dawson chased down Parker Friedrichsen for a block to prevent an easy layup, resulting in another 3-pointer for White at the other end.
Again the Wildcats tried zone out of a timeout, again they got dunked on (this time by Bidunga) and again White connected from deep to give KU its largest lead at 46-26.
The Jayhawks turned up their level of play in particular in the final minutes of the first half, and Council reached double-figure scoring on the day with a crafty drive that made it 51-27. Blums connected on a deep 3 to set the halftime margin at 21 points, as White missed a stepback 3 attempting to draw a foul in the corner.
He went into the break leading all scorers with 16 points.
Both teams struggled with turnovers early in the second half, but Davidson had to put a stop to play three minutes in after KU took a 58-32 lead on a corner 3 by Tiller. That was the Wildcats’ final timeout.
With 16 minutes to go, Council collided with Nick Coval trying to secure a steal. Coval got called for a foul and Council came up limping a bit, then massaged a muscle on his left leg during the timeout. Council subbed out but returned after a short stint on the bench.
During his absence, with KU leading 60-35, Rosario made back-to-back 3s, both assisted by Elmarko Jackson, including a pull-up in transition. But he missed his next two attempts as Davidson scored 10 straight points, half by Coval and half by Joe Hurlburt, to reduce the Jayhawks’ lead back to its halftime margin of 21. Neither player previously had any points in the game.
Dawson turned in another good shift on the floor and set up Bidunga for a pair of buckets inside midway through the half. The KU bench ratcheted up its quality of play significantly, as Rosario reached double figures for the first time since Nov. 11 and Dawson, Samis Calderon and Paul Mbiya got on the stat sheet.
“We didn’t want to get it out of the way, but we were just ready for another opportunity to play,” McDowell said. “We wanted to finish this first season off good, and end with a win, and let everyone get in, get some good minutes and play hard and come out with a W.”
After a lengthy holiday break, the Jayhawks will open Big 12 play on the road at UCF at 1 p.m. Central Time on Jan. 3. They conclude the nonconference season with a 10-3 record.
“Without a healthy DP, I think that’s pretty darn good if you ask me,” McDowell said. “I think we probably go almost undefeated with him. It’s always exciting to see when he plays. It’s going to be even more exciting when he’s back. When he’s healthy, we’ll be needing him, but until he’s back and fully healthy then we’ll continue to play how we are.”
In separate comments, Self struck a similar tone.
“If you look at record before the season started, I would say probably a B-minus,” Self said. “If you look at it that we played it without DP, I would say probably a B-plus. I think the guys got better. Carolina would be a hard game regardless, but losing to Duke and Connecticut — when I think that I’m not saying that we would have won, but I think that having a full complement of players could have been a different situation. But guys are learning to play through it, and hopefully we’ll be better for it.”
