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MONDAY DECEMBER 3, 2012
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TYLER ROSTE/KANSAN
Senior forward Jeff Withey slams the ball into the hoop in the second half of Friday night's game. Withey had 17 points in the Jayhawks victory against Oregon State.
MEN'S BASKETBALI
Kansas wins despite foul trouble
ETHAN PADWAY epadway@kansan.com
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — For the first time this season, the Kansas men's basketball team had to compete against multiple opponents at once. In addition to the five men Oregon State put on the floor, the Jayhawks also had to contend with foul trouble in their 84-78 victory against the Beavers on Friday.
Foul trouble forced two Kansas starters, guards Elijah Johnson and Ben McLemore, to the bench for extended periods of each half, which stopped the Jayhawks' momentum and allowed the Beavers to gnaw their way back into the game.
And when they did foul, the Jayhawks didn't foul with enough intensity to affect the shot. Kansas coach Bill Self believes his team does this more frequently than any other team in the nation.
"There's no question that we foul so soft," Self said. "We just
McLemore started the game looking unstoppable. He scored 15 points in 13 minutes of play before finding his place on the pine.
don't play real smart, and then we haven't had too many guys in positions to go ahead and be the guys to close people out."
Without McLemore on the floor, the Jayhawk offense lost its voracious attitude. The team struggled to make plays and saw its once 14-point lead disintegrate in the heat of an 18-4 Oregon State run that the Beavers managed to keep on the stove for 3:38 seconds.
And once here-entered the game,
McLemore's scoring touch was left
behind on the Kansas bench.
"I don't think it affected my play," McLemore said. "Coach just told me to start moving with my feet and my hands, and that's what I did. I picked up another cheap one, and I noticed when I got back in the game, coach told me again to move my feet, and that's what
I did."
With Johnson and McLemore on the bench, Johnson approached another senior, fellow guard Travis Releford, and told him that with them sidelined, Releford would have to be the one to shoulder the Jayhawks offense.
Between Johnson's encouragement and Self's challenge to the guards to play more aggressively on offense after halftime, a light went on in Releford's head.
"Coach challenged all the guards to attack the paint and put pressure on the defense," Releford said. "That was my main focus coming out in the second half."
He played every minute of the second half and scored 16 of his 20 points.
It was the third time in a two-week span that Releford played in front of his friends and family in his hometown. And his domination of the Sprint Center continued.
He has now scored 60 points
"Travis played great in the second half," Self said. "I thought he played beyond awful in the first half. He played about as bad as he's played in a few years. He finally got mad at someone, maybe it was me, and started attacking the hole."
in three games at the downtown Kansas City arena this season.
Although the Jayhawks are learning to win ugly. Self is far from satisfied with the results his team is producing.
"The thing that frustrates me more than anything is that I just can't believe that guys don't like to compete" he said. "There were three loose balls and we could have drove to start the game. They ended up with six points because of that, because we are too prima donna to get our nose dirty."
— Edited by Nikki Wentling
TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN In the Sprint Center in
Senior guard Travis Releford goes for the layup during the game against Oregon State on Friday inside the Sprint Center in Kansas City, Mo. Releford scored 20 points and had five assists.
KANSAS WINS
AGAIN IN
SPRINT CENTER
WHAT: 84-78 victory for
Kansas against Oregon
State
WHEN: Friday, November
30
WHERE: Sprint Center,
Kansas City, Mo.
"We did some good things,but it
Freshman guard Rio Adams elevates to hit two points over Oregon State defenders. The Jayhawks were victorious in their game at the Sprint Center on Friday night with a final score of 84-78.
Self said that after looking at 60 percent shooting, outrebounding the opponent and shooting 68 percent at the free throw line, he didn't think the win should have been that difficult.
TYLER ROSTE/KANSAN
The Jayhawks loose-on-ball defense was one factor that led to Oregon States' comeback in the second half.
Self far from satisified with Jayhawks' latest victory
"We just don't play real smart," coach Bill Self said. "We haven't had too many guys in positions to be the guys to close people out. We're not an execution team yet, so if you're not that, at least guard and rebound, and we don't do that great yet, but we did get a lot of easy shots, so you can't blame it on our offense."
TREVOR GRAFF
tgraff@kansan.com
"He got whipped" Self said. "The point guard on their team gets 25, and our guards get four. That's a little frustrating because I don't know where we go from there yet. I'm
Senior guard Elijah Johnson continued to struggle scoring, with only six points in 28 minutes of play.
Oregon State guard Ahmad Starks led OSU near the end of the game, helping the Beavers cut the Kansas lead to 80-77 with 15 seconds left in the match. The Jayhawks struggled taking care of the ball, allowing Oregon State to keep the score close, despite Kansas' 60 percent shooting performance from the field.
Kansas fans, reminded of last year's Sprint Center loss to Davidson, felt a bit tense down the stretch of Friday's 84-78 win over the Oregon State Beavers in Kansas City, Mo., Friday night.
"We were fortunate to be up three at half, because that thing was at 14 and it dwindled fast," Self said. "We didn't have guys step up and stem the tide so to speak. We just played poorly when we needed to be sound. That led to the comeback."
all comes down to this: They guard the guy with the ball better than we guard the guy with the ball." Self said. "That's something that obviously has to improve, or we'll have to change the way we play. We'll have to start playing some zone or whatnot."
"We had three loose balls at the start of the game that we didn't dive on the floor to secure, and they come away with six points because we don't," Self said. "That's a toughness element."
Self said Kansas's lack of tough play and a go-to player to lead the team during the Beavers' runs allowed Oregon State to stay a viable opponent in the game.
The layhawks' tame defense led to several missed opportunities for added possessions.
trying to figure out a way to put us in a situation where the other team doesn't feel so comfortable"
"Coach challenged me at half-time, and all of the guards, just seeing how we hadn't been attacking the paint, which is stuff we've been working on the past week," senior guard Travis Releford said. "I noticed that, so I figured I should probably put pressure on the defense to help the team, and it opened up a lot for us."
"It's early on, Releford said. We're only seven games in. It's a lot of work, but we have a break coming up. Hopefully, we come together better than we have recently. I think it will all. come together soon."
The Jawhaws took just nine 3-pointers, a stark contrast to the team that shot 20 or more 3-point shots in three of its seven games this year. Self emphasized getting to the basket, as Kansas scored 49 points in the paint.
Releford said the backcourt chemistry is still a work in progress. He said the young players are still learning.
For Self, the game boiled down to one major point.
"They didn't score off their actions," Self said. "They scored off of us not being able to guard the ball, which is pretty important."
TRAVIS YOUNG/KANSAN
—Edited by Joanna Hlavacek
Freshman guard Ben McLemore dunks during the first half of the match against Oregon State in Kansas City, Mo. McLemore had 21 total points with two steals.
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