**Las Vegas -**In the first game without center Udoka Azubuike, lost for the season after having wrist surgery, fifth-year senior center Landen Lucas did his part to fill the gap.
Looking more and more like the center Kansas was able to count on for strong defense and rugged rebounding last season, Lucas contributed a season-high 12 rebounds in 27 minutes of the victory over UNLV. He missed an open shot right at the hoop and was limited to four points, so it wasn’t a perfect night.
In the past four games, Lucas has averaged 20 minutes, made 11 of 15 field goals, all six free throws. In those four games, he has averaged seven points and eight rebounds.
“I’ve been trying to improve my game throughout the season,” Lucas said. “Tonight, offensively, I thought I wasn’t very good at all. In order to help this team, the main focus is going to be rebounding and defense and I thought I did pretty well on the side. It’s another step forward.”
Early in the season, Lucas was dogged by foul trouble. He had just one in the first half Thursday and although he finished with four, foul trouble didn’t cost him much time on the floor.
“Stay out of foul trouble,” Lucas said of his key to minimizing the loss of Azubuike. “The minutes will depend on the games, how I’m playing, how coach feels about it. I want to be available to go in, which means having as little fouls as possible. I feel like for most of the night I did pretty well at that. Toward the end of the night they started calling more on me.”
Lucas has been dogged for most of the season by a sore foot and had a stretch where he battled a strained muscle in the ribcage area. He’s feeling better of late and it shows.
