Kansas State isn't a very good basketball team, and last night Kansas made them look like not a very good basketball team, beating them 90-66. The game obviously had a lot of subplots: ESPN Gameday was there, it was the 150th anniversary of Kansas becoming a state, and of course Thomas Robinson dealing with the worst week anyone could possibly think of. But like we are wont to do, the Allen Fieldhouse faithful showed why Lawrence, Kansas is one of the special places in the sports universe, and helped will Kansas to a big win. And I'm not the only one who thinks so.
Defensively, K State was 33rd nationally in terms of PPP allowed coming into the game. We scored 1.23 points per possession on them. .3 points over average on a team is pretty darn impressive. With how the team played offensively last night, I can't help but think they are itching for another shot at Texas. The Kansas big men also kept the nation's 3rd best offensive rebounding team nearly 4% under their season average.
Kansas's great efficiency game mostly via their great shooting. A 66.4% eFG that, though they shot 50% from three, was built mainly on two point shooting. Kansas made just 5 threes and 29 of their 55 twos, for a 64% mark. To contrast, K State made just 16 of their 46 twos.
I don't mean to rehash a talking point from my immediate postgame, but maybe we should let the play on the court decide who our rivals are, rather than students from schools who wish they were our rivals.
- I always have trouble deciding who to start with when we have games like these, but I decided on Josh Selby. He had a pretty bad early go of it, but rebounded to finish with 12 points on a 91.6% eFG, mainly helped by him going 3-3 from three. He did turn it over 5 times but had 4 assists, and played pretty good defense.
- The Morris twins combined for 30 points and 18 rebounds. Markieff had 20 on 8-10 shooting (and 4-5 from the line). He was huge all night, and I think there is a serious question as to which Morris twin is better. In any event, I think they are both top 20-30 players in the country, something I would have thought unfathomable 2 years ago.
- Nice game again from Tyshawn, who was 5-6 from two, though he didn't really play like a traditional point guard in this one (not that he does a lot anyways). Still he played good defense, again, though I am sure someone will have something to complain about.
- Elijah Johnson needs to improve in a hurry. The stats say he had 6 assists to 1 turnover, but he looked generally sloppy with the ball and he just doesn't look comfortable out there. I do get the sense that the enthusiasm and willingness to improve are there, so hopefully he doesn't get discouraged.
- Last and most we come to Thomas Robinson. 17 points and 9 rebounds, and he scored in every way from a putback dunk to a jumpshot at the top of the key. He was active at both ends of the floor, and played the most inspired game of basketball anyone on the team has played all year, for obvious reasons. I don't want to use a cliche like his mom would be proud of his effort, because truthfully I am sure she was proud of him regardless of how well he played basketball. I also would like to note that while I hope the money raised for his sister's scholarship foundation is as much as possible (and I think it will be very very high), Thomas Robinson is going to have some NBA dollars to help pay for that if need be.