Kansas Basketball Dominates Lafayette In Win

The Jayhawks scored 96 points against Lafayette yesterday afternoon, to the tune of 1.48 points per possession. In a rare change for the Jayhawks, they didn't turn it over often and they shot decently well inside the arc. They did, however, shoot well beyond the arc and dominated the offensive glass, two things that have become the norm this year.

The Jayhawks shot 52.2 percent from three, taking 30% of their shots behind the arc. That's roughly in line with how many they have taken all season, and quite frankly it needs to be higher. With the team's struggles inside the arc, and their ability to shoot threes and grab offensive rebounds, not to mention the propensity to turn the ball over, they need to attempt more threes. The Jayhawks rebound half of their misses and had as many offensive rebounds (20) as Lafayette had defensive rebounds.

Defensively, the Jayhawks allowed just over a point per possession to Lafayette. That's not encouraging, but given that the Leopards have been held under a point per possession just twice this year, it's not much to get worked up about. It's worth noting the Leopards did most of their work off jump shots, not just in shooting 46 percent from three, but also a lot of the 2-pointers were jump shots. Some of them were due to poor defensive rotations, but some were tough shots that they made. It happens.

On the downside, Kansas still can't force turnovers. Lafayette turned it over on 18.5 percent of its possessions, under its season average, and that was a main culprit in some of the defensive flaws. If a team relies on playing underneath people and giving up jumpers, there are going to be runs like that. On the flipside, of course, if a team doesn't have a great rim protector maybe it is best to sit behind people and take your lumps and not give up drives to the basket. More on that later.

• Wayne Selden had a rare game where he didn't need to make jumpers to be effective, with four rebounds, six assists and a steal. It does help, of course, that he was 2-3 on twos and 2-5 on threes.
• This was one of Frank Mason's best games as a Jayhawk, as he had 9 assists to just 1 turnover, and was 2-3 on threes. He's now shooting better from three (52.2%) than he is at the rim (51.7%, via hoop-math).
• Kelly Oubre had his best game as a Jayhawk, scoring 23 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. Oubre was 5-8 on twos and 4-7 on threes. He had 5 offensive rebounds, and played pretty good wing defense.
  
• A surprising bad game for Perry Ellis, as he was just 2-6 and grabbed 3 rebounds.
  
• Just 6 minutes played for Landen Lucas, who grabbed 1 rebound. We'll have to delve more in depth into this one later, but he might have lost some playing time to Hunter Mickelson, depending on opponent.
• Jamari Traylor had his second strong game in a row, with 11 points and 7 rebounds. Most notably, he played 24 minutes without a turnover.
• Sviatoslav Mykailiuk got back on the horse and found his long range stroke a bit, going 3-4 behind the arc. He was just 1-5 from two, though.
• Cliff Alexander had 10 points and (a surprisingly low) 5 rebounds, as well as two blocks in 17 minutes.
• Hunter Mickelson had his best game of the year, with 8 points and 7 rebounds in 17 minutes. Like Alexander, he had two blocks. I think he'll start to eat into some of Lucas and Traylor's playing time, depending on opponent. Again, more on that next week.
• Brannen Greene played just 6 minutes, going 1-2 on threes.