Halftime Musings: No Kev, No Problems as Kansas is rolling Texas at the half.
When news broke that the Kansas Jayhawks would be without leading scorer Kevin McCullar in today's game against the Texas Longhorns, many were understandably worried that this might be a tough game for Kansas. But Bill Self's squad didn't get the memo.
While there is still a lot of time left in the second half, the Jayhawks raced out to a big lead, gave it back and then got everything to click with some big plays from the bench. Kansas leads at the half by a dominating 45-25 margin. Here are some thoughts from the first half:
Bench has come through
The bulk of the scoring for Kansas has still come from the bench, as just four points came from a player not on the floor at the tipoff. But they have put together some pretty solid performances so far. Jamari McDowell has 8 minutes, with two free throws made to go with two steals. Elmarko Jackson hasn't scored, but he has played great defense and added in three assists in 8 minutes. Parker Braun has 2 points and an amazing defense-offense series where he got a block and then ran the floor to get a finish on the other end. The box score may not agree at the end, but I bet that Bill Self will give the bench a lot of praise after the game, assuming that Kansas doesn't mess up the second half.
Dominating the Post.
It's weird to say this when Texas led the offensive rebounding 9-6. But the Jayhawks outrebounded the Longhorns on the whole. Add in a dominant 30-10 margin in the paint and over 60% shooting inside the perimeter, and it's hard to find fault.
Suffocating Defense
I said before the game that Kansas needed to lock down the Longhorns on defense in order to win this one, and they answered the call. Texas is shooting an abysmal 26% from the field, including a just ok 4-13 from beyond the arc. Playing without the defense of McCullar has both not hurt them, but also allowed them to showcase some of the great play of the bench. Hopefully they can keep showing out.
