Recap: Kansas vs Emporia State

The Jayhawks put a bow on their exhibition schedule Tuesday night, dispatching an overwhelmed Emporia State team 109-56 in Allen Fieldhouse. Kansas is expected to win these games handily, but it's nice to see them rout an inferior opponent, instead of letting them hang around and risking embarrassment. If nothing else, it gives fans a lot less to be nervous about heading into regular season play.

The big story leading into last night's game was Self's announcement that Ukrainian freshman Svi Mykhailiuk would get the start. Svi did not respond as well as one might have hoped, failing to log a point in his 13 first half minutes, shooting 0-4 from three point range. He would finish the night with three points on 1-5 shooting, with 3 rebounds, 2 assists and a steal, turning it over twice. Given his age and the circumstances, it's dangerous to read much of anything into his performance, but it's probably safe to say that Svi won't be seeing the starting lineup for a while now that the games start to count.

Another noteworthy story that developed as the game went on was how long it took Cliff Alexander to see the court. Hunter Mickelson actually entered the game first, with Alexander getting his first playing time about ten minutes in. He went on to play 8 first half minutes, while logging just 5 in the second. It's unlikely this means anything beyond Self sending the young player a message, but it probably indicates that Cliff won't be getting the starting nod out of the gate either. For what it's worth, Alexander still put together another great game, scoring 12 while grabbing 6 rebounds in just 13 minutes of playing time.

Given the Jayhawks' eight players in double digits, I won't detail every player who had a nice game, but there were a few standouts. Landen Lucas was able to score 13 points on just 5 shots, while Wayne Selden shot 5-7 from the field and led the team with six assists. In the ongoing point guard watch, Frank Mason made his only three point attempt as he posted 11 points with 4 assists and no turnovers, while Graham scored 10 with 3 assists and one turnover, missing both his three point attempts.

The Jayhawks open the regular season Friday against UC-Santa Barbara.