Updated 10:21 a.m. Thursday, Jan. 23:
Fort Worth, Texas — The crowd at Schollmaier Arena was energetic as it had been all Wednesday night, fired up by TCU’s renewed on-court vigor, until a pair of much-maligned Jayhawks combined to put Kansas back in front midway through the second half.
AJ Storr hit a deep stepback jumper, David Coit drained a 3-pointer in transition and then Storr swiped the ball from Vasean Allette, before eventually scoring on a putback layup. The stretch of seven straight points fueled a massive run that turned a 48-47 deficit into a 61-50 lead.
After trailing by as many as 14 points in the first half, 12th-ranked Kansas finished with a 13-point win, 74-61.
“We knew we didn’t come out very well prepared,” guard Shakeel Moore said, “and we just wanted to come out and make a statement and get back to the team we are.”
It was a night of notable stats for KU in an all-around team effort: Storr reached double figures for the first time since Jan. 5, Moore did so for the first time as a Jayhawk and freshman Flory Bidunga posted his first-ever double-double (with four blocks, no less).
“It’s my first one, so it really meant a lot to me,” Bidunga said. “… I feel pretty great about it.”
“I didn’t think anybody other than Flory was worth a flip the first half,” KU coach Bill Self added. “And then the second half … we didn’t get consistent guard play tonight, but AJ was really good, he was terrific, and Shak was the best guard we had tonight. And so that was production that we haven’t been getting consistently, so that was great to see.”
Even with such a wide-ranging array of contributors, center Hunter Dickinson persisted as KU’s leading scorer, totaling 16 points on the night. Zeke Mayo completed the quintet of Jayhawks in double digits with 13 points.
“We just take pride in building each other’s confidence up and getting each other rolling,” Moore said. “To see that, that’s going to be big going forward.”
For TCU, Noah Reynolds nearly matched Dickinson with his 14, and Vasean Allette scored 13, while Brendan Wenzel added 11.
A turnover-laden start prevented either team from making a field goal for more than two minutes before Ernest Udeh Jr. finished an alley-oop from Allette. KU went down 8-4 when TCU forward David Punch, who had previously been 1-for-7 on 3-pointers all season, hit one late in the shot clock. Then Udeh outmaneuvered Dickinson for an offensive rebound and converted a three-point play. That run of six straight extended into an overall 15-2 stretch before Coit sank a pair of free throws, his first since mid-November, to make it 18-8.
The Horned Frogs took their biggest lead of the night thus far when top scorer Reynolds, who had missed much of the start of the game due to foul trouble, made it 24-10 with a transition layup.
“We were as bad as anybody to start the game, and they were good,” Self said. “That’s a bad combination.”
KU showed its first signs of life, though, when Dickinson got involved for his first five points of the game and Rylan Griffen drained a second-chance 3 to cut the margin down to six.
KU got as close as 30-27 on a layup by Bidunga and had a chance to do even more, but Griffen stepped out of bounds as he received a pass from Dickinson. On TCU’s next possession, Reynolds rounded a screen to hit a straight-on 3.
Bidunga committed his second foul with just under four minutes left in the half, but stayed in the game. The Jayhawks caught a break when Wenzel missed two free throws. Bidunga scored again to give himself 10 points and seven rebounds on the game, and with a minute and a half left in the half, Mayo drained a floater to tie the game at 33.
However, he made a bad pass that led to a go-ahead layup by Allette, who led all scorers with 11 points at the break.
Moore hit a 3-pointer early in the second half that gave KU its first lead since the score was 4-3, but the Jayhawks committed a series of turnovers that prevented them from doing much more. Mayo did connect again from deep, meaning the Jayhawks needed just five minutes to exceed their total number of made 3-pointers from the first half (one).
With 13 minutes to go, TCU’s Trazarien White tied up Dickinson as the center was going for an offensive rebound, and he and several other Frogs attempted to rip the ball away from Dickinson for a protracted period, effectively bringing him all the way up to the base of the TCU student section. The officials eventually assessed both Dickinson and White with technical fouls, but on the ensuing possession, White laid in a lob that put the Frogs back ahead 48-47.
Self wasn’t pleased with Dickinson’s actions in that moment, which he called “asinine.”
“I guess it maybe in some world provides more street cred,” he said, “which in the world that somebody would actually think that, I don’t think they’re very knowledgeable about ball, but that was a bonehead play.”
Led by Storr and Moore, KU shook off the odd sequence and embarked on a 14-2 run, including a 3-pointer and fast-break dunk by Moore. The Frogs’ Reynolds made it a six-point game with a 3 with just over five minutes to go before Moore connected once again, giving him three 3s in a half compared to two the rest of the season.
“I don’t think we anticipate him going 3-for-3 from the exact same spot in the left corner every time,” Self said. “Shak was pretty good defensively too. Second half, he’s the best player in the game, I thought.”
Added Bidunga: “Coming off an injury and just playing great defensively, being a beast defensively, and then obviously helping us on offense with those 3s, that really meant a lot for our team.”
The Jayhawks, who improved to 14-4 and 5-2 in conference play, will return home to host No. 7 Houston on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. The Cougars stayed unbeaten in the Big 12 by dominating Utah 70-36 on Wednesday evening.
“They play hard,” Moore said. “Super tough team, well coached, and (we) just got to go out and prepare well for them this week.”
This story has been updated to reflect that Mayo scored 13 points, not 12.