After a blowout loss to Iowa State, Kansas basketball bounces back with an 84-74 win against conference rival Kansas State.
It was a little closer than Kansas basketball may have wanted, with Kansas State cutting the lead to six with four minutes left after trailing by as many as 16. However, Kansas stayed composed late and hung onto an ten point win.
KJ Adams missed his first game in two years and Flory Bidunga started over him. Hunter Dickinson led the way in scoring with 25 points and 8 rebounds. Zeke Mayo passed the 20-point mark again, finishing at 24, and DaJuan Harris added 15 points, 5 rebounds, and 5 assists.
For Kansas State, Coleman Hawkins came close to a triple-double, scoring 15 points to go with 7 rebounds and 10 assists.
Kansas extends its home winning streak against Kansas State to 19 games, with the last loss coming on January 14th 2006. Read below for three takeaways from today’s game.
Takeaway #1: Kansas starts hot, ends cold
The common theme of Big 12 play for Kansas has been cold starts and hot finishes. In the five prior Big 12 games, Kansas was 1-4 in the first half, and 4-1 in the second half. Today, it was the opposite. Kansas started hot, leading 14-0, and led by 10 at half.
While Kansas State didn’t exactly put too much pressure on them, they were able to cut the lead to 6 with four minutes to go and had the ball. Kansas ended up winning this game by the same margin, but they allowed 45 points at home in the half and definitely took their foot off the brake.
This is a one game sample size, and Kansas State has been unbelievably underwhelming as a whole this season, but Kansas’ lack of ability to put together two good halves in a game has been concerning.
Takeaway #2: The offense looks better without KJ Adams, the defense does not
KJ Adams is by far the most polarizing player on this Kansas team. Some fans love him and his energy on the floor, while others complain about his lack of shooting clogging the floor and limiting offensive production. Today, both were true. Offensively, this team looked more in control, shooting 55% from the field and scoring 84 points as a whole, second most in Big 12 play so far.
Defensively though, this wasn’t the case, they allowed 74 points, tied for the most in Big 12 play, and second most at home this season. Flory Bidunga, who started over him, is typically a plus defender, but he hasn’t played those big minutes that KJ typically does, leading to definite fatigue and four fouls in 25 minutes.
The extent of KJ’s injury is unknown, and as mentioned earlier, this is a one-game sample size, but this will be a great time for Kansas to test out different lineups that will lead to that high-level offense that we discussed, but also the high-level defense Kansas gets when Adams is on the floor.
Takeaway #3: Kansas State ice cold from three
Kansas State came into this game shooting 34.1% from three, 147th in the country. So, not bad by any means, but not great. On Saturday, they shot 23.1% from three, or 6-26. This actually improved in the second half, after they shot just 2-15 (13.3%) in half one. This Kansas State team has loads of issues, and if the three-point shot isn’t falling either, they won’t win any games. Brendan Hauson who they primarily brought in to fix that, shot 1-5 from three, and Coleman Hawkins shot 1-7 from three as well.
Up next for Kansas basketball (13-4, 4-2): at TCU – Jan. 22 at 6 p.m CST
Up next for Kansas State basketball (7-10, 1-5): at Baylor – Jan. 22 at 8 p.m. CST