New York — Kansas wing Tre White takes pride in his role as a jack of all trades who can fill different roles depending on what his team needs from him.
In the first half of Tuesday’s Champions Classic matchup against No. 5 Duke, with Darryn Peterson out, the Jayhawks needed White to serve as their primary shot creator.
He responded with 15 first-half points and helped sustain KU as its big men battled foul trouble, but it wasn’t enough to match the Blue Devils’ firepower. The Jayhawks couldn’t get over the hump to claim a lead in the second half and lost 78-66 at Madison Square Garden.
“When you play from behind it puts so much pressure on you not to have any screwups, and I think that I’d have to go back, but if I’m not mistaken we missed four free-throw opportunities in a row, a front end and then a two-shot foul,” KU coach Bill Self said. “And when you’re playing from behind, you got to convert every opportunity that you get.”
The early foul issues for Flory Bidunga and Bryson Tiller helped Duke engineer a big run late in the first half that changed the game. Later, Self kept both on the floor in the second half even as they reached four fouls each, and KU managed to stay close until a late offensive drought that spanned four of the final five minutes.
White led KU with 22 points and nine rebounds.
“Darryn’s a one-on-one scorer, so we definitely got to make up for that,” White said. “But the message has been the same: next man up, do the little things, play more aggressive.”
Another veteran filling the void left by Peterson, Melvin Council Jr. shook off early offensive struggles to finish with 15 points and six assists.
“He’s got to get where he can drive to pass and not just drive to shoot, but good gosh, he did some good things,” Self said of Council. “His speed is undeniable, and he finished at the rim, several good finishes. He’s close to being a real good guard. He (has) just got to tie some things together and be able to think about time, score and momentum sometimes a little bit, but I think Melvin’s doing well.”
Bidunga chipped in 14 points and six boards — he said he was trying to play “with my head and my feet” when he had four fouls — and helped defend Duke star Cameron Boozer, who still ended up with 18 points on 17 shots. Guard Isaiah Evans supported him with 16, including three 3-pointers.
“I actually thought we did some good things,” Self said. “We’re a makeshift team right now, but I thought we did some good things. I thought we competed hard. I thought we uglied the game up pretty well. I haven’t spoken to Jon (Scheyer), but I doubt he thought they ran the most fluid offense that they’ve ever run and stuff.”
The Jayhawks were able to force a pair of early turnovers and play in transition, as well as generate extra possessions with offensive rebounds. Duke kept pace early thanks to a pair of open 3s by Evans and Caleb Foster, but started to flag as the minutes drew on ahead of the opening media timeout. Council threw in a contested shot through contact to put KU ahead 14-10 when that timeout eventually arrived at the 14:34 mark, and he completed a three-point play after the break.
White got off to an exceptional start for the Jayhawks, but his first foul led to an and-1 opportunity for Evans. Duke drew within two points but faltered on a series of possessions, and Jayden Dawson swiped the ball from a bobbling Blue Devil to set up Bidunga for an alley-oop dunk that put KU ahead 24-18 and forced a timeout.
Bidunga incurred his second foul with 6:40 to go in the half, complicating matters somewhat as KU was attempting to limit Boozer and the Blue Devils’ potent offense. Boozer tied the game with a pair of free throws after drawing a foul on Tiller, and then Tiller committed his second on Darren Harris to give Duke the lead.
The Jayhawks went nearly five minutes without a field goal before White was able to shake off contact from Maliq Brown and bank in a shot late in the clock to tie the game at 30.
White, however, also got in foul trouble, which essentially resulted in KU having to run four guards around backup center Paul Mbiya. That didn’t work out well when Mbiya drew the Boozer assignment and guard Jamari McDowell had to try to defend post offense from 6-foot-11 center Patrick Ngongba II (13 points, seven rebounds), who scored a routine hook shot.
White came in quickly off the bench, and KU fell behind by as many as eight before he drained a contested 3 to give him 15 first-half points. Unfortunately for the Jayhawks, they conceded a deep 3-pointer to Evans with four seconds remaining. In all, KU conceded a 21-7 run after Bidunga committed his second foul to trail 41-33 at the break.
Bidunga provided a bit of an offensive spark in his return to the floor after halftime, but 3s by Cameron and Cayden Boozer and Dame Sarr created additional distance for the Blue Devils.
A three-point play by Council after an offensive rebound by White sparked “Let’s go Jayhawks” chants from the KU faithful at MSG, but Cayden Boozer silenced them repeatedly with a couple of responses at the other end, and the Jayhawks couldn’t get the stops they needed.
A pair of rapid-fire fouls by Ngongba stymied Duke a bit, but the Blue Devils continued to keep KU at arm’s length. Bidunga, for his part, stayed in the game after picking up his fourth with 7:28 to go, as did Tiller when he got his own fourth at 6:08. That came at a pivotal moment, as the Jayhawks had closed the gap to 63-59 on a vicious dunk by Bidunga and benefited from an early-clock miss by Evans, but couldn’t make it a one-possession game due to Tiller’s charging foul.
The Jayhawks finally did so when Duke threw out a zone and Council connected on his first 3-pointer of the season, but Cameron Boozer had another response, putting back his miss to make it 69-64. Then Duke worked the ball to Evans on a baseline out-of-bounds play for a crucial 3 at the shot-clock buzzer.
The Jayhawks, who fell to 3-2, will face Notre Dame at 2:30 p.m. Central time on Monday to kick off the Players Era tournament in Las Vegas.
AP Photo/Frank Franklin II
