Well, well, well...it would appear we might just have the makings of a team in Lawrence Kansas. Far from the favorites but the way things are moving I'll take my chances with this group and a possible 5th straight crown.
Our first big conference road test and we've passed. Now things only get tougher from here but with a win at home on Saturday vs. Oklahoma State we'll be securely back in the top 25 and 8-0 half way through conference play. 6-2 or even 5-3 from that point might just win this thing.
As far as tonight's game the game flow tracker for the first time since we started this feature we had a safe enough lead to get a good couple minutes of Rock Chalk Chant echoing in the arena and we heard it tonight in Waco. We really grabbed hold of this one at the 3:31 mark and from there despite Baylor's best efforts they weren't clawing back into this one.
More Stats, Charts and Breakdown after the jump...
4 Keys to the game break out a little better tonight for the Jayhawks then the first two times we looked at this. Much better in taking care of the ball, solid FG% and we again controlled the offensive rebounding. As I believe 2.1 mentioned earlier it's much easier to reduce turnovers than raise your shooting percentages and we did that tonight and because of that the Hawks got a fairly comfortable win in the end.
Player impact, who would've guessed that Rock Chalk would be oh so right in his call for the Morris twins to be a major factor and the combined MVP of this one. They scored, they rebounded and most importantly they didn't foul out. Of course as always Sherron get's his and also glad to see the impact Mario Little had in the scoring column.
A look at the team stats reveal a Kansas team pretty much dead on with their averages for the year in every category. The difference was in the Jayhawks ability to force Baylor into taking some ill advised shots and shoot a miserable 35% from the field, well below their average. We also kept them well below there rebounding average which led to less possessions and less shots for the Bears.
Player stats, read em and weap...the Morris twins came to play. Also we've discussed on here Self's tendancy to shorten the bench later in the year preferring an 8 maybe 9 man rotation. Take a look at the minutes and who played tonight. Wonder if he's getting comfortable with a group??