No Repeat as Kansas Takes Down the Topeka YMCA. I mean, TCU.

To start with the bad, Kansas gave up more than a point per possession to TCU. The bad news ends there, though. And, in fact, they probably only gave up a point per possession due to not really trying on that end of the floor in the second half, and the fact that they were playing their 4th and 5th bigs for long stretches.

It was actually one of Kansas's worse efforts in Big 12 play in the paint defensively, but the Horned Frogs still only shot 44% from two. The Jayhawks retained their conference lead in 2 point defense, and extended their lead in 2 point offense, going 27-44 from two. In conference play, Kansas is now shooting 60.7%, which leads the league by more than 7%. Shockingly (though I suppose not if you only watched the first couple games of the season), Kansas also leads the league in 3 point%, shooting just under 41% from beyond the arc on the season.

The Jayhawks dominated this one in every way. They grabbed nearly 50% of their misses and limited TCU to just under 20%. They lived at the free throw line, though they did foul way too often, and they even had a rare turnover free game, turning it over on just 15.2% of their possessions. The turnover issue still needs to get fixed, but I do think that in a perverse way it puts a little more pressure on opponents: teams know that Kansas is horrible in terms of turnover margin (10th in the league in turnovers, 9th in forcing them) and they're still winning, so teams still have to play well to beat Kansas, and if the turnover battle isn't anything but a huge win for the opponent, the opponent is going to be in huge trouble.

Speaking of which, next up is Iowa State, who couldn't beat Kansas despite forcing many more turnovers than their season average. Their three point shooting has regressed a bit in the last couple of games, but they're still 9th in the league in offense thanks to poor three point shooting and nonexistent offensive rebounding.

Andrew Wiggins: 9.5. The only thing keeping Wiggins from a 10 is the opponent. He was 6-9 from two, 2-4 from three, and 9-10 from the line. He also had 5 rebounds and 5 assists, and allowed his opponent to score just twice.

Wayne Selden: 7. Selden was 5-7 from two, 2-2 from the line, had 4 assists, a block, and a steal.

Perry Ellis: 5.5. Ellis had 14 rebounds, but was just 2-8 from two, with one coming from a dunk off a steal. He's still shooting 55% from two, and 66% at the rim, but he's fallen off dramatically in recent weeks.

Naadir Tharpe: 7.5. I struggle to rank Tharpe in games like these. It shows his maturity, though, (and, shameless back-patting alert, what I said early in the year) that if he doesn't have to shoot he's not going to shoot. Tharpe didn't take a shot, but had 4 assists and 0 turnovers for the Jayhawks.

Joel Embiid: 8.5. Embiid made half his shots and half his free throws, grabbed 6 rebounds, and blocked 3 shots. He also tweaked his knee in the second half and prompted at least 200 heart attacks and caused another 200 or so people to prepare for tearing knee ligaments out to lend to Embiid just in case.

Frank Mason: 7. Mason was 3-3, had an assist, and didn't turn it over in this one. He's starting to really settle into his niche: he's not going to supplant Tharpe as the starter, but he wasn't as bad as he played over the couple weeks after ceding the starting spot back to Tharpe. He's a good change of pace guard who can sneak into the lane and he's made big strides defensively so far this year.

Jamari Traylor: 7. The biggest news here is Traylor turned it over just once. He also was 3-4 from the field and made both his free throws. He added an offensive rebound.

Landen Lucas: 7. Landen Lucas, rebounding machine. He doesn't offer much in the way of post defense yet, but he had 5 rebounds in just 13 minutes played. I don't see him getting much playing time with Ellis, Alexander, and Traylor probably all ahead of him (and this doesn't even address what happens if Embiid comes back) but in his Junior and Senior year I think Kansas would be able to do much much worse than have Landen Lucas playing 25ish minutes a game.

No more ratings, but we can officially put any Andrew White controversy to bed. It looked like he was going to get some garbage time playing time, but for some reason got yanked after 4 minutes. I'm sure part of it is Self thinks Greene is the better player long term, and some of it is that he doesn't want to mess up any chemistry the team might have gained in the recent month or so. Or, maybe he has multiple recruits wanting to commit but needing scholarship room, in which case the only way to get it is to push a couple kids out the door.