Hawking Points: Without McCullar, Kansas Rolls With Great Offense

A balanced attack led the Jayhawks past the Cowboys Tuesday night.

Without leading scorer Kevin McCullar, who didn’t play due to injury, the Kansas Jayhawks didn’t miss a beat in a home demolishing of Oklahoma State, 83-54  

Key Plays

If you had the first points of the game being a Dajuan Harris triple, go ahead and head to Vegas because Harris drilled an open one on the first possession. After a Johnny Furphy layup, Elmarko Jackson — into the starting lineup in McCullar’s absence — drained a three before Harris finished in the lane again to give Kansas an early 10-6 lead.

It was KJ Adams turn to go to work, throwing down an alley-oop out of a timeout and then a floater. Then baskets by Dickinson and Harris put Kansas up 18-10 with Harris scoring seven early points. After a timeout, another Jackson jumper put Kansas up double digits. OSU cut the lead to six but Dickinson unleashed a beautiful one-handed cross-court pass to Jackson for his second three. Dickinson scored again and them Jackson found Nick Timberlake for an open three to put Kansas up 31-15.

Furphy drained another three, marking five makes in seven attempts from deep for the Jayhawks. Furphy and Adams scored six more points and Kansas took a 44-26 lead into the half.

The blemish of the first part of the second half was Dickinson running to the locker room. But Harris immediately drained a three and Kansas kept the 18-point lead into the first media timeout. Jackson continued his strong play while Dickinson looked fine from that tweak and continued to dominate the paint.

A phantom swipe on Harris for a OSU and-one cut the lead to 19 with 8:53 left. But Harris would get the lead back himself with his 12th point on the night. Jamari McDowell had some nice minutes and got into the scoring action with an and-one with five minutes left.

Michael Jankovich came into the game soon after a drained a three on his first attempt, bringing the crowd to its feet.

Eye-Catching Stat Lines

All five started scored in double figures for the Jayhawks. Dickinson and Adams tied for a team-high 16 while Harris (12), Furphy (11), and Jackson (10) rounded out the starters. Kansas shot north of 55% from the field and made 7-15 from three. Adams was a perfect 7-7 from the field and six assists. Dickinson recorded another double-double with 11 rebounds.

Oklahoma State appears to be the lone team to not hit threes against KU. The Cowboys shot just 8-28 from deep after making just 6-21 in the first meeting.

Areas of Improvement

The one area Kansas struggled with defensively was in the offensive boards, giving up four in the first 15 minutes. The Cowboys grabbed nine offensive boards in total but it didn’t matter in the end.

Otherwise, Kansas took care of the ball, only turning it over nine times, most of those coming with the game well out of reach, and shot well from the floor.

Takeaways

It’s not a huge result on the scoreboard, but to win in this way without Kevin McCullar and to get this type of play and confidence from Jackson could pay huge dividends down the road. Now the onus is on getting healthy before Houston comes to town Saturday.