Kansas holds off Iowa State, 83-78

Iowa State rolled into Lawrence on Tuesday evening looking to win its second-straight game in Allen Fieldhouse.

It was a run-and-gun affair early on, with Kansas racing out to early leads of 11-6, 17-9, and 22-16. But ISU wasn’t going to be run off, tying the game up at 24-all with 8:34 to go until halftime. Kansas would end up with a 40-37 lead at the break.

Iowa State would take a brief 42-40 lead immediately after halftime, but that lead lasted exactly three seconds. Kansas pulled ahead to a 7-point, 49-42 lead, and survived a couple of Iowa State runs, including when the ‘Clones managed to tie it up again at 66-all with 9:08 to play. A huge block by Malik Newman on Donovan Jackson with 2:37 to play led to a KU fast break that put the Jayhawks up 77-73, and KU held on for the 83-78 win.

Kansas took 23 of its first 30 shots from three, but then nearly abandoned the shot, finishing 14-36 (38.9%) from behind the arc.

Malik Newman led Kansas in scoring, hitting 10-21 shots, including 5-12 threes, and added 8 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 blocks against just 1 turnover.

Devonte Graham really struggled with his shot tonight, hitting just 4-14 from the floor, including 2-7 from deep. Graham was credited with 9 assists and 4 steals versus 2 turnovers.

We didn’t really learn anything new about Kansas tonight. The lack of depth is still an issue, as is the lack of size in the post. Iowa State “only” rebounded 30% of their misses, but it sure felt like a lot more.

Up next, Kansas will welcome K-State to Lawrence for part 1 of the Sunflower Beatdown Showdown, at 11 AM on Saturday, January 13.