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Volume 128 Issue 66
Kansan.com
Monday, January 26, 2015
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COMMENTARY
Kansas back in familiar territory: first place
By Sean Collins @seanzie 3
Edited by Kayla Schartz
In Saturday's matchup of the No. 11 Jayhawks against the No. 17
No.14 Jayhawks against the No.17 Longhorns, the boys in blue pulled away from Texas late in the second half to win 75-62 in a much closer game than the score would indicate.
The story of the game was how well the Jayhawks took care of the basketball, only committing three turnovers all game while remaining efficient on offense. Along with 12 points from Mason and 14 from junior forward Perry Ellis, the Jayhawks got a huge boost off the bench from freshman forward Cliff Alexander (15 points and nine rebounds) and sophomore guard Brannen Greene (14 points).
Freshman forward Cliff Alexander dunks the ball during the second half against Texas on Saturday, Jan. 24, in Austin, Texas. Kansas won 75-62, with Alexander contributing 15 of those points.
The Jayhawks made all of the hustle plays in the game to grab loose balls and force the Longhorns to commit nine turnovers. The play of the game came in the first half when junior forward Jamari Traylor made multiple hustle plays running up and down the court four times within a 30-second period.
MICHAEL THOMAS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Traylor rejected Texas' sophomore guard Demarcus Holland at the rim and later forced a turnover on Holland that led to a bucket and a foul for sophomore guard Frank Mason, giving Kansas a 26-21 lead with four minutes left in the half.
Greene's play off the bench was critical for the Jayhawks, especially on three-point shots with the freshman guard Kelly Oubre Jr. struggling from the field shooting 33 percent with eight points.
Kansas 'wanted it more' in 75-62 Texas win
With their win against the Longhorns and the Iowa State Cyclones' loss on the road to Texas Tech 78-73, the Jayhawks hold sole possession of first place in the Big 12.
After a layup in transition from Mason, Texas was forced to call a timeout with four minutes to go in the game, down 62-54. From that point on, the Jayhawks didn't look back, sinking five of six free throws to clinch the victory.
Although the Jayhawks only shot 6-of-18 from three-point range, Greene was four of five from deep. The Jayhawks held the Longhorns to a hideous 16.7 percent from three.
Despite the Jayhawks' great defense around the perimeter, the team struggled to stop the Longhorns' sophomore guard Isaiah Taylor who put up 23 points.
A hustle play late in the second half stole the game from the Longhorns. With 13 minutes left, the game was tied at 44 before the Jayhawks began to pull away with a pair of dunks from Alexander and a three-pointer from Greene.
DAN HARMSEN
@UDK_Dan
With 0.7 seconds remaining in the first half, Texas guard Isaiah Taylor toed the foul line and knocked down both attempts. The successful free throws snipped the four-point Kansas lead to two before time expired. 32-30.
That's when Kansas coach Bill Self and Texas coach Rick Barnes exchanged words about their respective squads.
"You're good," Self told Barnes. "You're good, too," Barnes repressed.
Both teams are vying for the Big 12 championship Kansas, its 11th straight; and Texas, its first since it shared it with the Javhawks in 2008.
Kansas and Texas played well over stretches, including nine lead changes. The Longhorns led by as many as nine points four minutes into the contest. Although both were good, Self's team was just a little bit better than Barnes' on Saturday, as the Jayhawks wound up winning 75-62.
Kansas (16-3, 5-1) left a sellout crowd of 16,540 inside the Erwin Center in Austin, Texas, with a half-game lead in the conference. Texas (14-5, 3-3) saw an opportunity slip through its hands.
"This is a huge win for us," sophomore guard Brannen Greene said, finishing the day with 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting.
Surviving nine blocked shots, Kansas pulled away in this one thanks to crucial plays down the stretch from players like Greene. Its largest lead (13) came with just 32 seconds remaining as sophomore guard Frank Mason hit both free-throw attempts.
The Jayhawks won Saturday for a variety of reasons — just three turnovers, its fewest since 1966; a one-rebound advantage over the fourth-best rebounding team in the nation; six three-pointers — but one reason, a factor not
listed on the final stat sheet, stands taller than the rest.
"We just wanted it more than them," freshman forward Cliff Alexander said.
In a back-and-forth, tit-for-tat first half, Kansas led Texas 23-21 with 5:12 left.
In possession of the basketball, junior forward Jamari Traylor squared to the basket and slashed inside the lane, and the million-dollar question leading into Saturday's contest resurfaced: How would Kansas handle the Longhorns' overall height advantage?
“[Texas] has got like 21 feet of big men,” Greene kidded on the square.
"Against Kentucky, we shied away from [the size]. Today we didn't."
On the Traylor drive, Kansas would not find its answer.
BILL SELF
Basketball coach
Six-foot-9 Texas junior forward Cameron Ridley slapped one of his monstrous paws on the shot, sending it caroming off the backboard and into a Longhorns' erasn.
But in the subsequent seconds, on the Texas fastbreak, the Jayhawks would figure out how to handle it.
The recently rejected Traylor put his head down, sprinted down the court and returned the favor, sending sophomore guard Demarcus Holland's layup attempt back where it came from.
Kansas missed on the other end. A mad-scram on both ends followed, in which Traylor flew out of bounds under the Kansas basket as well. Traylor then dove head-first for a loose ball near mid-court and punched it to an open Mason, a player with a penchant for contact. Mason drove hard to the rim for a three-point play.
"I thought that was the best play I've seen since I've been at Kansas," Self told the media of Traylor's relentlessness hustle-play after the game.
"It was a great hustle play," Alexander said. "Got our bench into it"
To say the least, as Kansas' bench outscored Texas' 31-8 on the afternoon.
Sure, the Jayhawks outexecuted the Longhorns. Kansas shot 27-of-62 (43.5 percent) from the field, including 6-of-18
(33.3 percent) from three, as compared to Texas' 24-of-60 (40.0 percent) from the field and just 3-of-18 (16.7 percent) from three.
But the loose balls went Kansas' way. Traylor would finish with just two points, but his two steals and other stolen possessions stymied the Longhorns.
The Longhorn faithful groaned as Kansas grabbed late, game-sealing rebounds. It was win 10 of the last 12 for Kansas over Texas. The
win came with skill, but don't forget desire and toughness.
"Against Kentucky, we shied away from [the size]," Self said. "Today we didn't."
Saturday, Kansas did the little things that ended up making a big difference. The effort-plays.
It's why you look up at the Big 12 standings each year and see one constant. The Kansas Jayhawks in first place.
Edited by Yu Kyung Lee
Jayhawks vanquish Mountaineers 65-59
SCOTT CHASEN
@SChasenKU
"The night is darkest just before the dawn."
Those words, spoken by Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent in "The Dark Knight," have really held true for the Jayhawks as of late, especially following the team's performance on "Superhero Day," against the West Virginia Mountainers. The Jayhawks started 0-5 in Big 12 play, but since then, they've won two in a row, with their second win coming against West Virginia on Saturday, 65-59.
BEN BRODSKY/KANSAN
Terriail Bradley drives past a West Virginia defender on Saturday, Jan. 24. This is Kansas' second win in a row after a 0-5 start in the Big 12.
Chelsea Gardner, who was cast as "Iron Man" according to the team's media guide, played the role of the main protagonist for much of the evening. The senior posted one of her best career-performances, scoring 20 points on 9-of-14 shooting, while putting up a heroic effort on the boards. Gardner pulled in 20 rebounds, which was a career-high. As the game went on, West Virginia started focusing more and more attention on the senior, which meant someone else had to step up as the Robin to her Batman.
"They do a great job of trying to bring help, like magnets to the ball" said coach Bonnie Henrickson in the postgame press conference. "They're going to force you to let go of
it, but that [plays into] who we are; we're unselfish."
Early on, it was Lauren "Captain America" Aldridge who helped the team stick around, scoring or assisting
on seven of the team's first 13 points in the first half. The freshman ended up with just seven points on the evening, but she would lead the team in both assists and steals, with eight and five respectively.
Aldridge did a good job of settling the team down in a first half that had plenty of momentum swings.
In fact, in the first 20 minutes alone, there were three 4-0 runs, two 5-0 runs and four 7-0 runs split between the two teams. The Mountaineers would end up with a fourpoint advantage heading to half. The Jayhawks managed to keep it close, despite shooting just 36.4 percent from the field and 16.7 percent from threepoint range. As the teams headed into the break, West Virginia coach Mike Carey said he felt his team really let an opportunity slip away.
"We had a lead, but we should've had a bigger one at halftime," Carey said. "In the second half, when they started making their run, we made a lot of mistakes."
As Carey alluded, things finally picked up for the Jayhawks in the second half when Natalie Knight and Asia
Boyd started to get going. The two scored 21 of their combined 29 points in the second period, 16 of which came in a six-minute stretch where the Jayhawks went 8-of-8 from the field.
At that point, the layhawks took control of the game. They would lead the rest of the way despite only scoring nine points in the last seven minutes. The team's defense was especially key over that stretch, as it held West Virginia to just 11-of-33 shooting from the floor.
"We did a really, really good job of being disciplined and tough," Henrickson said. "We finally got them away from the rim (in the second half)."
With the win, the Jayhawks improved to 11-9 on the season. They'll face their thirdstraight unranked opponent Wednesday, as they head to Ames, Iowa. The Jayhawks will be looking for their thirdstraight victory, while their opponent, the Iowa State Cyclones, will be looking to improve to 4-0 at home in conference play.
Edited by Samantha Darling
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