Hawking Points: Kansas struggles in 73-59 semifinal loss to Marquette at Maui Invitational
The Kansas Jayhawks won't be the No. 1 ranked team in the country in the next AP Top 25 poll after stumbling in a 73-59 loss to the fourth-ranked Marquette Golden Eagles in Honolulu on Tuesday night.
KEY PLAYS
Every time Kansas started to make a run in the loss, especially in the second half, it felt like Marquette had an immediate and even more devastating answer. The Jayhawks cut the lead to eight points at the 18:42 mark of the second half, which preceded a 9-0 Golden Eagles run to re-extend the deficit. KU chiseled it back down to a nine-point margin with 11:02 to play, but Marquette responded with a 10-2 burst to shut the door for good.
Even in the first half, when the game was still very much in doubt, KU put itself in bad situations by slumping from the floor and allowing Marquette to earn too many easy buckets. After a Hunter Dickinson jumper tied the game at 16 just over six minutes into the contest, the Golden Eagles ripped off an 11-0 run to take a lead they'd never relinquish.
EYE-CATCHING STAT LINES
Kevin McCullar's triple-double streak was snapped in the losing effort, but he did lead all scorers with 24 points on 9-of-14 shooting, and he was the only Jayhawk to make multiple three pointers. Dickinson was the only other player for KU to crack double figures, pouring in 13 points. McCullar and Dickinson tied for the team high in rebounds with eight apiece.
Turnovers and overall shooting woes overshadowed any individual performances for KU, however. The Jayhawks shot 40.7% from the floor and 6-of-17 (35.3%) from three-point range, but they made just two of their final 10 attempts from deep.
As for the turnovers, 18 is far too many against a good team like Marquette. The Golden Eagles made the Jayhawks pay in that department, too, scoring 20 points off KU giveaways.
DANGEROUSLY LITTLE DEPTH
Outside of the leading scorers, no one for Kansas scored more than five points in the loss, and the other nine Jayhawks who saw the floor shot a combined 8-of-30 (26.7%) from the floor.
While it's hard to call anything "dire" at this juncture of the season, the lack of production at the two spot is a glaring worry for KU. Elmarko Jackson started and went 0-of-4 from the field for zero points. Johnny Furphy and Nicholas Timberlake both scored five points off the bench, but it was a particularly arduous effort for Timberlake to get there.
TAKEAWAYS
This isn't a complete disaster for the Jayhawks and it's not a death knell for their season. It's Thanksgiving week, there's a ton of college basketball left to play and there's plenty of opportunities for improvement for this group.
Still, the omnipresent concerns for this roster were magnified against a team that has as much talent and as tenacious of a defense as the Golden Eagles do. KU needs to shoot the ball better. It needs to do a much better job keeping opposing scorers in front of them on the defensive end. And, obviously, turning the ball over as often as it did on Tuesday is untenable.
Kansas will get a chance to bounce back another top-10 team in the third-place game on Wednesday when it takes on the Tennessee Volunteers. There's a bevy of kinks that need to be worked out for Self's group right now, and hopefully the Tennessee game will be a chance to work on some of them.
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