After a wild weekend of basketball in the Big 12 Conference, Kansas once again is looking into the throne room with big eyes and a joyous outlook. Why not! They have the inside track on their 12th straight league title won or shared with a two-game lead on the field.
Ah, but lurking in the Texas land of Waco is Baylor, the inconsistent but dangerous Bears. KU is 11-3 in the conference while Baylor, Oklahoma and West Virginia are 9-5. Coach Bill Self told reporters the obvious in looking to Tuesday night’s game: “If we’re not successful in Waco, our lead is down to one.”
After losing two in a row, the Bears won three of their next four games, capping it off Saturday with an impressive 78-64 victory over Texas in Austin.
Will the Jayhawks be over-confident heading into Waco, with the seven-game winning streak and the 102-74 rout early in the season at home against the Bears? They shouldn’t be. Last season, they needed a rally to beat them in Waco, 56-55. Wayne Selden made three consecutive baskets in less than two minutes, including the tiebreaking 3-pointer.
Hmm, Selden and Baylor. In this season’s conference opener, Selden hit five 3-pointers and scored 24 points, leading Kansas on a big early run that swamped Baylor. It was the Jayhawks’ sixth straight win over Baylor. No. 7?
Usually, Baylor’s zone defense creates problems for opponents. But in this season’s conference opener, the Jayhawks hit five of their first six 3-point attempts, then started to slash to the basket when lanes opened, forcing the Bears into man-to-man. Ergo: Rout.
While KU is looking at bright lights and fun times, Kansas State is dour and struggling all over the place.
You kinda hate to bring up the old hackneyed stereotype of Mount Oread and Silo Tech, but dang it, there’s a developing situation there. Doctors and lawyers provide lots of input to KU, from personal endeavor to financial aid and health care and legal segments of the economy are improving. Not so for agriculture and the oil and gas industry and those are avenues of revenue for Wildcat athletics. This economic situation bodes well for KU but not for K-State, where wheat farmers and oilmen helped build additions to football and basketball facilities that cost $150 million for just two improvement at the stadium.
Maybe that’s a side road away from the subject but with the basketball team 4-10 in the conference, there’s not a good feeling emanating from all those donors. The negatives apply added pressure for the coaches and the players.
In last Saturday’s game in Manhattan, KU took awhile to shake loose from the doldrums but wound up with a 72-63 victory.
A 17-4 run from 7:44 to 2:22 in the first half gave the Jayhawks a 35-25 lead. KU seems to get that little boost from someone to provide that little extra charge. This time Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, who has been less than so-so of late, drilled his second 3-pointer to give the Jayhawks a 26-25 lead at 4:55 — he wound up with 9 points. KU led 39-29 at the half.
After watching the West Virginia-Oklahoma game that finished just before the KU-Kansas State tipoff, it was hard getting into the game. The Mountaineers and Sooners played with intensity and fire, resembling a boot camp run by a rough and ready sergeant. The Mountaineers did what they do — slap, pick, prod, dig and press opponents with tenacity. But the Sooners, playing strong on the road, have a leader, Buddy Hield, and he responded with 29 points as OU prevailed in a game that did not reflect the closeness of the final 76-62 score.
KU and Kansas State began in what appeared to be a rendition of the Blue-Gray game — KU in bright blue and K-State in drab gray.
Perry Ellis was black and blue after the game. At 12:30 in the second half, the KU standout tumbled to the floor, blood running down the side of his face after a blow behind his left ear in a rebound scramble. He didn’t return until 6:05 with 12 stitches in his head. Then at 1:19, he left again after an injury. He managed to get back to the bench late in the game, sitting there blinking his red and irritated right eye.
Ellis’ value to the team certainly was evident because without him the Cats got back in the game after falling behind by 17 points. They trailed just 60-53 when Ellis returned to the game.
Coach Bruce Weber, as frenetic as ever on the sidelines, told reporters after the game that with Ellis out, the Cats simply functioned better. “I told our guys to start pounding the ball inside,” Weber said. “But those mental mistakes really hurt us. We didn’t finish layups; they did. You got to make big plays; we didn’t”
The Cats did pound it inside to D.J. Johnson but he managed just one field goal in five tries from close range. He did go to the line 10 times and hit 9 free throws. Weber also praised another of his big men, Stephen Hurt, who came off the bench to score 13 points — with 9 of them coming on 3-pointers. He tied Barry Brown for game high honors — Brown’s points came on just 4 of 14 shooting.
To K-State’s credit, the players kept fighting like the dickens. Justin Edwards’ layup got the Cats to within three, 63-60, but Selden’s offensive put-back, a Cat turnover on an entry pass to Johnson and four free throws by Devonté Graham kept the Jayhawks on top.
Ellis, in 30 minutes of action, scored 14 points. Guard Frank Mason III led KU in scoring with 16 points; he added 5 assists.
KU’s Brannen Greene entered the game at 16:39 of the first half Saturday to a chorus of boos. He created a stir in KU’s 77-59 victory over K-State in Lawrence where he dunked the ball at the buzzer. He played only five minutes Saturday without scoring.
The disparity in talent between the two teams was never more evident than what occurred in a couple of sideshow events. Four minutes into the game, there was Austin Budke, a walk-on, trying to stop Ellis. It was futile. Then there was Dean Wade, the 6-10 freshman from St. John, Kansas, trying to stay up with the KU big men. He played only 13 minutes, mainly because of foul trouble and scored just a point. Early in the second half, he was trying to get back to Ellis after a double-team and he tripped, losing his shoe and sprawling on the floor as the 3-pointer swished. It wasn’t surreal; it was realism.
So was the comparison in field goal shooting — the Jayhawks 50 percent and the Cats 38.
Another reality check came at the free-throw line. The Jayhawks, in the first half, shot 19 free throws to K-State’s six. That helped KU make its comeback.
Edwards offered an obvious statement to reporters after the game: “When we spot teams a lot of points, it’s hard to come back.”
The Cats have lost three of their last four games and will take on Texas tonight at home.
The Cats lost in Austin 70-67 after leading 45-41 with 8:31 to go, fading as they have done in several games; they made just four more field goals and turned the ball over four times. Edwards scored 13 and Brown, off the bench, had 15. The Longhorns were 4 of 20 shooting 3-pointers but they changed strategy and started driving on the K-State defense. As has often been the case, the Cats couldn’t stop the guard penetration and Texas made its rush. Guards Isiah Taylor and Javon Felix led the Longhorns, scoring 17 and 14 points, respectively.