Hawking Points: Kansas Goes Cold in Only Big 12 Tournament Game

The Jayhawks are on to the NCAA Tournament, hopefully with a healthy roster.

No Hunter Dickinson, no Kevin McCullar, and no advancing in the Big 12 Tournament for the Kansas Jayhawks as the offense was too cold and they missed too many opportunities in a 72-52 loss to Cincinnati.

Key Plays

KJ Adams got the scoring started with a drive before Day Day Thomas continued his hot shooting with a three. But Elmarko Jackson and Johnny Furphy were active early defensively. Cincinnati jumped out to a five-point lead but then Kansas answered with its own run to tie the game at seven with an Adams slam on a blocked Nick Timberlake three.

The Bearcats scored another five straight but Dajuan Harris finished off the backboard and Jackson threw down a ridiculous dunk in traffic to get the crowd alive. Cinci again rattled off seven more unanswered points. Jamari McDowell was the first sub coming in for Timberlake and immediately scored on a back-door cut assist from Adams. After a defensive stop, Adams drove hard and drew an and-one.

The difference in the game in the first half was Cincinnati was making threes and Kansas wasn’t. That led to a nine-point UC lead. Cinci hit its fifth three in 10 attempts while KU was 0-7 from deep and the Bearcats led by 14 with 4:40 left. Kansas went more than six minutes without a field goal before Harris finished a layup, but Kansas was still down 15 at that point. KU trailed 38-25 at the half.

The Kansas defense clamped up to start the second half and an Adams floater and Harris free-throws cut the lead to single digits. A Cincinnati turnover led to a McDowell three in transition and all of a sudden Kansas trailed just 38-32. Down six again, Cincinnati threw the inbounds pass out of bounds and on the ensuing play, Adams drew an and-one to make it 40-36.

Kansas had multiple chances to get even closer but missed good looks. Then Harris blocked a shot and hit Adams with a short roll to make it a two-point game. Kansas had more great looks they missed and then gave up an offensive rebound from the Bearcats shooter to go back down five.

Adams threw the ball away and Skillings drained a three to go up eight. Another Jayhawks turnover ended with a Cinci miss but Adams down and grabbing his ankle. He would return a few minutes later. Furphy missed a three and Cinci made its three to go up 11.

Timberlake hit Kansas’ second three with 4:30 to play but Kansas immediately gave up a basket on the other end. It was over after that. The only other bright moment was Patrick Cassidy coming in for the final minute and hitting a three to put Kansas up over 50 points. 

Eye-Catching Stat Lines

KJ Adams was the only offense for most of the game. He scored a team high 22 points while grabbing four rebounds.

It was a breakout game for McDowell, as he had seven points and four rebounds while hitting the team’s only three for the first 35 minutes of the game.

Meanwhile, Harris, Furphy, Jackson, and Timberlake couldn’t do anything. The four players combined to shoot 8-38. Furphy had one of the worst games of his career, only scoring two points on 1-7 shooting.

Kansas as a team shot just 34% from the floor and 15% from three.

Areas of Improvement

Where to start? Kansas couldn’t hit anything offensively, only shooting 34.5% from the field and going 0-8 from three in the first half. It didn’t get any better in the second half. KU had good looks – great looks, even – but couldn’t make hardly any of them.

We knew the big challenge of this small lineup was rebounding and Cincinnati grabbed nine offensive rebounds in the first half and XX for the game. Whenever Kansas got close and the Bearcats went on a run, it started with grabbing their own miss and getting an easy putback.

Takeaways

I was hoping some of the other Jayhawks would step up big and take the lack of confidence personally, but that didn’t really happen. When Kansas needed them most, Harris, Furphy, and Timberlake were bad. The biggest positive was the play of McDowell. He should be playing over Timberlake right now.