Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Predictions: BYU Cougars

The Kansas Jayhawks mauled Chaminade in the first round of the Maui Invitational, avoiding the upsets that plagued the top half of the bracket. Tonight, they face a BYU Cougars team that was a blistering 9-18 from 3 in the first round. Can Kansas slow down BYU and take advantage inside to bully their way into the final?

Take a look at what our staff thinks, and then give your own prediction in the comments.

Fizzle406: BYU is a scrappy team of gym rats who have sneaky athleticism. These guys have high motors and are film room junkies. It won’t be an easy test against the hard nosed glue guys of BYU. Still I like the Jayhawks to advance to the championship. Kansas 81, BYU 70

Mike.Plank: Basketball? There’s still another football game to be played, right? It’s not basketball season yet. If there’s not a single-digit number in front of their name, Kansas better not lose to them. Kansas 75, BYU 68.

David: BYU has some terrible rebounding numbers and they don’t block shots. That would leave me to believe they aren’t very strong in the post. One they thing are doing well is shooting from behind the arc, so given KU’s advantage in the paint I’d expect them to shoot a ton of threes and hope to overcome their disadvantages that way. I don’t think it’ll work. Plus if they were to win, they’d start to celebrate, and then they’d probably get suspended by the university for dancing or something. Kansas 78, BYU 65

Kyle_Davis21: To David’s point, it will be interesting to see how Bill Self decides to attack a smaller BYU team (not quite Chaminade small, but the Cougars tallest player with Childs out is 6-9) that doesn’t rebound well. On the other end, BYU shot 50% from 3 against UCLA, and that’s a difficult number to replicate in back-to-back days. Feels like one where BYU hangs around in the first half before KU goes on a run. Kansas 77, BYU 69

dnoll5: Well, I stayed up late last night to watch the BYU/UCLA clash in order to give the best possible #analysis I could, so…..just kidding, I fell asleep 14 seconds after the Kansas game ended. BYU is probably a fine team although I’m not taking much from a win over UCLA who hasn’t been good since that time they beat KU in the Elite 8. KU heads to the championship to play…...Dayton. Sure. Kansas 77, BYU 61.

Andy: BYU was hot last night, but they don’t usually take anywhere near that many, let alone make that many. Also, their opponents typically take a lot of 3s, which really isn’t what KU does. Kansas is going to be able to bully them inside, because the tallest player on the team is 6’9”, and everyone else is 6’7” and below. Expect Dok to eat all night long. Kansas 89, BYU 71.