Kansas Jayhawks Basketball vs Nebraska Cornhuskers: A (Semi) Statistical Recap

There will be time to discuss Carlton Bragg more fully, but at the top I think it should be mentioned that I think Bill Self is handling this situation about as well as can be reasonably expected by holding him out of competition until we know all the facts. If it comes out that the police report is 100% accurate then I think you pretty much have to either suspend him for the year or kick him off the team altogether, but again, there will be plenty of time for that when we know more.

As for the game, Kansas took a pretty big lead in the first half and then coasted in the second half, letting Nebraska have a glimmer of hope every so often before deciding to play hard again and eventually winning by 17. The defense wasn’t great in the second half, nor was the effort, but I am not too worried. Breaking news, 20-year olds are going to let their feet off the gas a bit when it looks like the game is all but over. So Kansas allowing .99 points per possession to a bad offense is bad, but the Jayhawks did much better in the first half.

For the game they still allowed Nebraska to shoot just 39 percent from two. The big problem children were Kansas forcing turnovers on just 16 percent of Nebraska possessions and allowing the Huskers to rebound 37 percent of their misses (although again it should be said this number was right around 30 percent in the first half).

Offensively Kansas kept doing what it has been doing. The Jayhawks scored 1.22 points per trip, shot 65 percent from two, and 47 percent from three. I don’t know why they only took roughly a third of their shots from deep, but I guess when you shoot 65 percent inside the arc it doesn’t really matter. Kansas also only turned it over on about 18 percent of their possessions (which is not great but fine) and grabbed 32 percent of their missed shots (same). Nebraska has a pretty good interior defense, so this should be a sigh of relief for people who were worried whether or not Kansas could score enough to win without a ton of threes.

Letters?

• Frank Mason: A+. Mason was 3-5 from two, 2-4 from deep, 6-8 from the line, had 7 assists and 0 turnovers. I’m not really sure how you can do better.
• Josh Jackson: B. Jackson showed off his passing ability again, and also had 5 blocked shots, but also had 4 turnovers. He was 7-10 from two though, although I could do without the horrible long twos.
• Devonte Graham: B. Graham was 4-7 on twos and 2-4 from three, but had just 1 assist and 2 turnovers.
• Lagerald Vick: C-. It has been a rough couple games for Vick, who didn’t do much other than hitting a three in this one.
• Udoka Azubuike: B-. Boo showed off a nice little hook shot, and also had 4 blocks and 6 rebounds, but still has a penchant for fouling too much.
• Svi Mykhailiuk: A. Svi was 4-7 from two and 2-4 from three, and also had 2 offensive rebounds, 2 assists, a block, and 2 steals.
• Landen Lucas: A. Lucas made all 5 of his twos, had 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and a block. His offense was helpful, but his ability to get vertical and wall off at the rim was the story in this one.