Kansas Secures First Big 12 Road Win At Tech

All game tape of last night's victory over Texas Tech has been burned, so we only have our memories now. The Jayhawks gutted out a tough road win, no doubt feeling some effects from the triple overtime game on Monday, and took down the Red Raiders scoring 1.03 points per possesion and allowing just .88 points per trip.

The Jayhawks won the game largely because of their outside shooting, shooting 41 percent on 22 attempts from deep. The Jayhawks shot just 42 percent on 33 2-point attempts. The Jayhawks also committed an uncharacteristically high number of turnovers, turning it over on 22 percent of their possessions. However, 8 of the 15 turnovers were committed by Carlton Bragg, Brannen Greene, and Jamari Traylor in 37 combined minutes. The Jayhawks also weren't able to force many Tech turnovers, so there was a dearth of easy baskets via transition.The Jayhawks got quite a few good looks from both two and three however, so I would not be too worried by the low offensive total.

Defensively, Kansas played very well at times. Somehow the Jayhawks allowed fewer than a point per possession despite allowing Tech to shoot 80 percent on 2-pointers in the second half. Thankfully Tech shot just 25 percent from three and 47 percent from the line. Kansas also did a very good job in not allowing second chance opportunities, as the Jayhawks allowed Tech to grab just 18 percent of its misses.

In all, these are the types of games Kansas needs to win. A road game against a bottom half team, after a classic against their top challenger. It's natural that Kansas wasn't going to come out with its best effort and perhaps not play very well. Credit should go to Texas Tech for mucking things up, but had Kansas not had to play 75 pressure packed minutes on Monday I think this would have been comfortable from the start.

Wayne Selden had a bit of a rough game, shooting just 1-7 from three, but he had a nice stretch in the second half where he made two nice drives to the basket in a row. Last year Selden probably doesn't make that drive to the hoop, and he certainly doesn't make both of them.

Perry Ellis was 6-15 from two and made a three. He also grabbed 10 rebounds. He has gotten a bit of a bad whistle in the last couple games. I am not sure if refs are used to him going away from contact, or think it's impossible for him to get fouled because he's a smallish post player, but he's gotten robbed of a few free throw opportunities in the last couple games which would have given him some more points and made him more efficient.

Frank Mason was great in this game, and it wasn't even one of his better games in a KU uniform. He missed both of his twos, but was 3-6 from deep and made all 8 of his free throws. Mason also grabbed 10 rebounds, no doubt helped by Tech not sending guards to the offensive glass, and had 5 assists and two turnovers.

Devonte Graham struggled a bit again last night, going 1-4 on twos and 0-2 from three. He also had just 2 assists and a turnover. The defense was improved from Monday, however.

Hunter Mickelson started, but got pulled after two early fouls and never really came back in. I think his rim protection would have been useful in the second half given the free lane to the rim Tech had.

Landen Lucas made a couple really nice defensive plays, was 3-4 from the line, had a block, 2 assists, and 2 rebounds.

Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk played well last night, going 2-3 from deep, grabbing a pair of rebounds and a steal, and playing pretty well defensively.

Carlton Bragg looked like a good bet to have a good second half given how much Kansas was looking to feed the post, and given that Bragg is our best big men passer, but his three turnovers in 14 minutes won't endear him to anyone. He was 2-3 from the field though.

Jamari Traylor played 12 minutes without scoring, had 2 turnovers, and a blocked shot. After a strong nonconference period, Traylor is starting to regress to where he was last season. We'll see how much Self leans on him going forward.

Brannen Greene was 2-3 from three and had 4 rebounds in 11 minutes, but committed some awful turnovers and was horrible defensively.

Cheick Diallo played just 3 minutes and even though he looked generally lost out there, I wish he would have gotten some more time in the second half like Mickelson due to how much Kansas needed rim protection.