Hawking Points: Kanas Takes Care of Chaminade in Maui Invitational Opener

It wasn't pretty, but the Jayhawks advanced to face either UCLA or Marquette.

The Kansas Jayhawks opened its portion of the Maui Invitational wearing its special Maui Strong uniforms created for the Illinois charity game and took care of the hometown Chaminade Silverswords 83-56.

Freshman Johnny Furphy got the first start to his career as KJ Adams was late to travel to Hawaii after the tragic loss of his mother to cancer on Friday.

Key Plays

Hunter Dickinson picked up right where he left off against Kentucky in the Champions Classic, scoring Kansas’ first four points and six of KU’s first nine. Chaminade fought back, getting down by just four at 11-7 after being down 9-2.

KJ Adams checked into the game for the first time with 14:14 left in the first half to a standing ovation from the Kansas faithful in attendance. Kevin McCullar quickly got a steal and finish and then a jumper on back-to-back possessions before beautiful ball movement ended with a Dajuan Harris uncontested three.

A Chaminade three cut KU’s lead to eight at 31-23 with 3:57 left, before Dickinson and Adams got the Jayhawks back up by double digits. Harris drove the lane and then found a cutting McCullar, but two Silversword free throws kept the lead at 12 at the half, 39-27.

KU’s first points of the second half came on an out-of-bounds alley-oop from Harris to Adams, which then sparked a McCullar fast-break layup. Two possessions later, Adams found Dickinson running the floor for the slam. Dickinson’s outlet passes are a thing of beauty, and one to Jackson led to a McCullar and-one and extended Kansas’ lead to 48-32.

Chaminade again got the game closer at 50-39, but then Kansas decided to stop messing around. KU fed Dickinson down low, McCullar found Furphy for a layup, and the biggest highlight of the night came when Harris threw a pass off the backboard to Adams for a monster slam and suddenly KU was up 62-40.

It was a mostly uneventful last 10 minutes of the game until McCullar made a three and Harris again threw a flashy pass on a fast break to Adams.

Eye-Catching Stat Lines

Dickinson is going to put up some absurd numbers this year, and he was wildly efficient tonight in putting up 31 points and 11 rebounds on 15-18 shooting. 

McCullar again filled up the stat sheet, recording the first back-to-back triple double in KU history with 22 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 assists to go along with three steals and two blocks. Unfortunately, McCullar also had five turnovers.

The passing continues to be one of the most impressive components of the offense. The Jayhawks ended with 29 assists on 36 made field goals. 

Adams also chipped in eight points and four assists coming off the bench. 

Areas of Improvement

Nick Timberlake had another rough start. He missed an open three midway through the first half and then blew a layup. It didn’t get a whole lot better from there. Timberlake was 0-4 and 0-3 from three until the final 15 seconds when he got a fast-break dunk.

The sloppiness that has plagued Kansas all year so far continued to rear its head again in the first half. Chaminade went on an 11-4 run as Kansas had seven turnovers in the first 15 minutes. It got a bit better from there, but Kansas still turned the ball over 15 times against a D2 team that only had 13 turnovers itself.

The outside shot was not there on Monday. Kansas hit two early threes in the first half but went 2-15 at one point before McCullar buried one with 6:30 left in the game.

Kansas also only got to the line nine times (hitting five) against a smaller opponent. 

Takeaways

There’s not a ton to take away from this one. The Jayhawks didn’t play an overly pretty game by any stretch of the imagination, but Chaminade was also never really a threat to take the lead. You would have liked more from Kansas’ young players, but the Jayhawks survived and advanced to fight another day. But it’s going to have to be more fundamentally sound to beat either UCLA or Marquette.