Kansas went to a hostile Bramlage Coliseum and emerged with a hard-fought 74-71 victory over Kansas State.
Recap
The game opened with sloppy play by both teams, with Landen Lucas finally opening up the scoring with a dunk one minute and 22 seconds into the game. For the next 8 minutes, though, it was all K-State as the Wildcats opened up leads of 20-8 and 22-12. The Jayhawks stormed right back, though, with a Josh Jackson jumper, a Jackson dunk, a Frank Mason three, and a Svi Mykhailiuk three. KU finally re-took the lead at 30-29 with 3:04 to go on a Jackson layup. Kansas would take a 37-35 lead into halftime.
Josh Jackson opened up the second half with two made threes and Kansas built what would be its largest lead of the game at 47-38 with 17:55 to play. However, by the 11-minute mark, K-State had closed to within 4. The Wildcats finally took their first lead of the second half at 60-59 with 4:38 to go on a Dean Wade jumper. Two Frank Mason free throws would give Kansas the lead right back and the Jayhawks would never trail again as KU held off the ‘Cats and came away with the 74-71 win.
This and That
Frank Mason led all scorers with 21 points despite struggling a bit from the field, hitting only 7-17 shots, including 2-5 from 3 and 5-6 free throws.
Carlton Bragg was effective in 13 minutes, and provided a spark early in the first half when the Jayhawks really needed it.
Josh Jackson was impressive tonight - not only scoring 18 points on 7-12 shooting, but being aggressive, taking the ball away - just impressive.
KU hit 8-17 (47.1%) threes.
K-State hit 8-22 (36.4%) threes.
KU was called for 18 fouls vs K-State’s 16, but the discrepancy was MUCH larger over the first 32 minutes of the game: 14-5.
KU did just enough to put this game away at the free throw line, hitting 12-18 (66.7%).
Up Next
Kansas will head to Lubbock, TX, to take on Texas Tech on Saturday, February 11, at 1 PM.
We’ll have more on the Kansas State game over the next day or two, but for now, the comments section is yours.