A (semi) Statistical Recap of Kansas vs. Colorado

Kansas did what K State couldn't: send Colorado off to the Pac 12 with a loss. It certainly wasn't a pretty game, but the offense showed up much better last night. Sadly it seems the defensive concerns are back a bit as Colorado scored 1.19 points per possessions, and actually outshot the Jayhawks in terms of eFG, 57.1% to 55.5%. If Kansas is going to hold teams defensively, it appears they're going to have to do so by forcing them to miss jump shots, or just hope they do. Colorado turned it over on only 14.3% of their possessions (though they did take care of the ball fairly well all year, so it's not just a KU issue). Kansas also didn't defensively rebound as well as they normally did, with Colorado grabbing 29.7% of their misses.

Offensively though Kansas was fantastic, scoring 1.29 PPP. Their three point shooting returned as well, shooting 41% from beyond the arc. They also grabbed an obscene 50% of their own misses. And fortunately our earlier concerns about free throw shooting appear to be less than we feared. Our late game ball handlers were phenomenal at the line, with Tyrel going 4-4, Marcus 10-12 and Tyshawn 7-8.

Now Kansas gets a chance to avenge one of its two losses. The team has come out sluggish in both of its previous two games, which was different levels of worrisome (I wasn't worried at all about them doing it against Okie State, but see my rant in the OGT about them doing it last night). But if they come out flat against Texas, a team they should have wanted a rematch with for six weeks now, it is time to get worried.

• A lot of players had big games, but I'm going to start with Tyshawn. The Junior had 17 points on 4-7 shooting, and as I said above made 7 of his 8 free throws. He was also the broken play offense, getting to the rim on multiple occasions when nothing else was happening. He also had 2 rebounds and 4 assists.
• Marcus had 20 and 13, but it was another uncharacteristically inefficient game, as Marcus was just 5-12 from the field, all two point field goals. He did have 4 assists and 3 steals.
• Markieff had 20 and 8 and was much more efficient, going 5 of 8 from two and 1-2 from three.
  
• Probably Thomas Robinson's worst game of the year, as he had 2 points and only 1 rebound in 9 minutes.
• Josh Selby wasn't great, but he wasn't awful either. He made a three and followed one of his own misses to get a three point play out of the deal. He also grabbed four rebounds. Probably not a turning point game or anything, but maybe he can be serviceable for a handful of minutes if needed.
• After an off day, Tyrel re-discovered his three point stroke, going 3-6 from beyond the arc.