A 35 point victory. That is all the basketball Jayhawks could muster Thursday night in their first action of the season. I could care less what the final score was, or really what the score was at any random point in the game, I was much more concerned with how people "looked".

Of course, that is hard to do when freakin' CSTV wouldn't play on my computer, thus giving me no option on how to watch or even listen to the game. So I'm box-scoring, going fully off of a set of numbers largely gained in a game that was already over. Well, that and the Open Thread over at the Phog.net boards, a sometimes objective point of view of the first action of the season.

My initial thoughts, all taken from the above mentioned sources:

• Darrell Arthur didn't really show up at all in the first half. His 12 points were scored exclusively in the second half, and he struggled getting open against a team whose tallest player is 6'8". Maybe he didn't give full effort, maybe he is saving up his hard-earned moves for tougher competition, but tonight's game was far from an impressive showing by DA.
• On the other hand, I was very impressed with our 3-point shooting. That probably had something to do with DA's struggles, but Sherron Collins knocked down 3 of 4 and Mario Chalmers dropped 4 of 5 from behind the arc. As a team, we hit 9 of 23.
• Tyrel Reed and Cole Aldrich, the two freshmen, both had decent debuts. Reed had 3 points, scored on his first attempt in a collegiate game, and Big Cole had 8 including the final 2 of the half. They will both continue to get more minutes, and they both will play key roles this season. I'm sounding beat writerish now, so let's stop.
• Our biggest problem, and this problem is on par with our football team's biggest downfall in dropped passes, is free throw shooting. Hands down. As a team, we shot 19-33 from the charity stripe, which is actually decent. But DA and Russell Robinson were a combined 4-12 from the free throw line, and team average was helped a ton by the 9-11 from Rodrick Stewart. That performance alone should earn him some more PT, PT he get with Brandon Rush's absence.

ROCK CHALK!