Three Keys: Jayhawks must take control against Knights
If you have been paying attention to college basketball this season, you would not expect the Kansas Jayhawks to struggle in tonight's conference road game against the UCF Knights. But also, you likely saw that both #1 Purdue and #2 Houston went on the road last night and suffered big losses.
The Jayhawks are heavy favorites in tonight's game, and for good reason. As we noted in our UCF Preview, there isn't much that UCF does that should worry you as a Kansas fan. But this is the Big 12, and crazy things happen every week in this gauntlet of a league. So here are the three things that I think will go the farthest to making sure the Jayhawks are successful tonight.
Dictate the Pace
The Jayhawks have been successful playing at multiple paces, having won games played very quickly and others that have been extremely slow. But the one thing they all have in common is that Kansas decided what pace they wanted to play. Against Kentucky, the Jayhawks pushed the pace quite a bit and were able to take advantage in transition. Against TCU, they slowed down the pace against one of the fastest teams in the nation to find success.
On the other end, Kansas was uncomfortable with the breakneck pace against Marquette and lost big. They struggled against a Missouri team that focused on Hunter Dickinson and ran like crazy before resetting the pace and then coming back just as fast. Against Indiana, they slowed down an Indiana team in the second half to come roaring back. And against Yale, they struggled against a hot shooting team playing at a glacial pace before turning on the jets and shooting past them.
All this is to say that Kansas doesn't need to play at a particular pace to be successful, but they do need to be the ones to decide which pace they want to play at. Do that on the road, and it will be difficult for UCF to get the upset.
Hold on to the Ball
There is no other way to put it: Kansas has a turnover problem. They average 12.6 per game, turning the ball over on 17.4% of their possessions. It might be the most frustrating aspect of this team for fans, even above the inability of the Jayhawks to find a reliable player for the shooting guard position. Making this a bigger problem, UCF is one of the nation's best at getting steals. While Kansas has the 8th best defense according to Kenpom, UCF has the 25th best defense. Turnovers will be the best way for the Knights to keep the Jayhawks close, so limiting them will make the game a lot easier.
Lean on the Defense
If you asked 100 fans whether they would prefer a win in a shootout or a defensive duel, 98 of them would probably pick the former. This might just be selective memory, but the seasons with the most complaints have been ones where the Jayhawks have a stellar defense and a decent offense. And of course I can't count how many times I've seen fans complain about the slow pace of Tony Bennett's Virginia teams.
But this is a team that is significantly better on defense than on offense. And they lean on that defense to create opportunities on both sides of the floor. This isn't to say that Kansas won't be able to score a lot, but they need to make sure they don't speed up too quickly to put pressure on themselves to score. Instead, trusting the defense to give them opportunities should be more than enough to put this game out of reach.
