Not much to be said for this one really. Part of it is that I watched only about 5 minutes of the game, and part of it is that the outcome never really was in doubt. Kansas continues their great offensive play, putting up 1.3 PPP, but continues a recent run of semi sloppy defensive performances (and one very bad one against Missouri), allowing the Cyclones .97 points per trip. Personally, I think if we allow .97 per trip the rest of the way we won't lose, but against a terrible team like Iowa State I'd like it to be .8 something. Though to be fair the Cyclones made 14 of 32 threes. I can live with a team hoisting up that many three pointers, especially considering I am assuming once the lead got too big the team was most concerned with saving their energy for Kansas State.
One thing Kansas has done a great job of lately is not turning the ball over. 13.2% is great against any defense, and while I'm not sure what the difference has been, I do think we have turned a corner turnover wise.
The offensive rebounding was better than our season average, which I suppose you would expect against a smaller team like Iowa State, and our defensive rebounding was right in line with our season average. I guess on some level this makes sense given both that Iowa State shot a lot of threes and isn't a great rebounding team. (The general basketball maxim is that three pointers are easier for the shooting team to rebound, but I'm not sure how to test that other than looking at every three pointer shot and figuring out if it's true. You can't just go look at the rebounding rates of the teams who shoot the most threes because teams who shoot tons of threes tend to be smaller, slower, etc. and wouldn't rebound as well.)
Player notes after the jump:
- I just looked at Tyshawn Taylor's line, but instead of noting his good shooting and only turning it over one time, I'll wait for everyone to tell me why he sucked and still sucks and always will suck. What a sucky suck for being the point guard of the presumptive #1 team in the country.
- Brady Morningstar turned it over twice, and thus I can only assume the world is going to collapse into itself. Still, he shot 3-4 from three, grabbed 4 offensive rebounds, had 4 assists and 2 steals.
- Both Morris twins had double doubles in this one, Marcus going 16 and 11 with a 62.5% eFG and Markieff had 14 and 11 (inlcuding 5 offensive boards) with a 65% eFG.
- Jeff Withey had 8 points in 9 minutes off the bench, though he had only 2 rebounds, so he didn't quite fill the Thomas Robinson role.
- Mario Little took 7 shots in 16 minutes, which is a few too many for my liking, but I'd rather have him have a cold shooting game in this one than in a big game.