At halftime, when Kansas had both a 12 point lead and was also nearly doubling USC's point total, I noted that KU had a PPP of 'bad' and USC had a PPP of 'worse.' That held to the end of the game, as Kansas finished by scoring .97 points per trip and held the Trojans to just .72. (not that it matters, but the dominant defensive performance coupled with Missouri's shaky win over Illinois propelled the Jayhawks over the Tigers in KenPom once again).
Kansas had just a 48.1% eFG in the game, and turned it over on 24.6%*. Just think how bad it would have been had they not dominated on the glass, grabbing 40% of their misses.
*Posnanski impression here: after starting the season as one of the best teams at taking care of the ball, Kansas now is turning it over on 21.8% of its possessions, which ranks 208th in the country, and is nearly 3% worse than last year.
Defensively it was a totally dominant effort by the Jayhawks: USC posted just a 40.8% eFG (31.4% from two) but did shoot 6-14 from three. Opponents are now shooting just about 3% worse from three than they are from two against the Jayhawks, which is a remarkable stat in many ways. Jayhawks also forced turnovers on 27.7% of USC possessions, and limited USC to just a 24.2% offensive rebounding percentage
- Thomas Robinson missed out on a double double by just one rebound, finishing with 10 points and 9 rebounds. He struggled a bit offensively but also had two coast to coast takes, which showed off why he is a guaranteed top 5 pick in next year's draft
- Elijah Johnson led the team in scoring, making 4 of his 5 twos and 2 of his 6 threes. He also had 4 steals and after being the worst defender on the team last year has fixed a lot of those problems.
- Tyshawn Taylor had 10 points, but more importantly 9 assists to just 2 turnovers. A great game for him, but it would be nice for Self to have played Tharpe more, regardless of how awful he was when he came in briefly.
- Conner Teahan had 13 points and went 4 of 7 from three. Even though two of those were in garbage time it's nice to see him find his shot a bit.