Kansas vs Creighton comes down to a missed free throw as Kansas wins a big non-conference game 73-72. Here are three takeaways from this game.
1) Jalen Wilson is getting better every game
After playing just two minutes last season, Jalen Wilson is playing like an All-American for the Kansas Jayhawks. He piled in 23 points and 10 rebounds, and shot the ball very efficiently from three and the field. He keeps knocking down big shots and keeping his team in games when they fall into scoring slumps as we saw in this game and the game against Kentucky. If he can continue to improve his defense, then Jalen Wilson could be an elite talent and a future player of the year candidate.
2) Creighton needs to figure out how to stop the bigs
With the tallest player in their starting lineup being only 6’7, they were really struggling to contain David Mccormack early on. Now, Mccormack has really struggled this year and started to regress in the second half, but when Creighton has to play a talented center in conference play they’re really going to struggle. Kalkbrenner off the bench stands at 7’0, but he didn’t look great today and will need to improve if he wants to get more minutes this season, especially in key minutes down the stretch.
3) Both teams have great scoring options
For Kansas, we all know Jalen is going to score, but it’s the other guys who have picked it up and helped this season. With Ochai Agbaji, their leading scorer, putting up a donut today, Christian Braun put up 14 included a few nice threes, McCormack scored 13, Garrett scored nine, but more importantly limited Marcus Zegarowski’s offensive input. Bryce Thompson, Kansas’ highly ranked freshmen looked a lot more comfortable shooting the ball and scored 8 off the bench, the most for either team. If Kansas can score 73 points with their leading scoring being held scoreless, that is a great sign for this team.
For Creighton, Marcus Zegarowski really struggled today, shooting 5-13 but still scored 16. Three of the other 4 starters scored 13 or more, with Chrisitan Bishop and Damien Jefferson scoring 13 apiece and Denzel Mahoney leading Creighton with 19. They didn’t get much scoring off the bench, but in conference play and other ranked games, Zegarowski isn’t going to play this poorly and that’s a great sign for Creighton.
Featured Image via @kuhoops on twitter