Southern Utah Thunderbirds vs Kansas Jayhawks Basketball Predictions: Keep It Rolling
The Kansas Jayhawks passed the first huge test of the season, defeating the Duke Blue Devils in a Champions Classic thriller thanks to a phenomenal performance from Jalen Wilson.
Up next is a mid-tier Southern Utah Thunderbirds team that should give the Jayhawks a good cool-down/warm-up to get them to their holiday tournament next week. But will the dreaded "let-down" game sneak up on the Jayhawks? Will any sort of exhaustion creep in and cause the Jayhawks to underperform tonight?
Do you disagree with our assessment? Make sure you read them all and then hop over to the Discord or on Twitter to share your own thoughts.
Kyle Davis
Check out our Southern Utah Preview for Kyle's full breakdown and prediction.
Brendan Dzwierzynski
Southern Utah is the second-highest ranked team in KenPom among KU’s first four opponents this season, with the Thunderbirds checking in at a whopping No. 162 as of the middle of the week. To be blunt, if Kansas plays anything like it did at the Champions Classic this should be a cakewalk for the Jayhawks. Southern Utah doesn’t have a ton of size and I’m not sure what they can do to slow down the new, hyper-aggressive Jalen Wilson or the instant offense of Gradey Dick. KU should be able to cap off the “Norm Roberts era” with a sound, fairly easy victory.
Kansas 88, Southern Utah 61.
Lucas Murphy
The Kansas Jayhawks are coming off of a tremendous basketball game against another blue blood, the Duke Blue Devils. The morale should be running high with the Jayhawks who were considered the underdog by most sports books. KU showed that skillsets and leadership can overcome size. Now the Jayhawks will return to Lawrence, Kansas to take on Southern Utah. My expectations are for Jalen Wilson and Gradey Dick to continue with their hot hands, but I would like some of the other players to log minutes. The first player I want to see is Bobby Pettiford. Pettiford has been a bright spot when on the floor and his progress has been noticed. The next player is if healthy, MJ Rice. Rice looked good in his lone game this season and I look for him to build on that, again if healthy. I expect the Jayhawks to walk away easily with a victory. Kansas 89, Southern Utah 58
Kansas 89, Southern Utah 58
Derek Noll
Duke and Southern Utah are similar in that they are both college basketball teams. Kansas took a gut punch against the Dookies and game out victorious, so I have no reason to believe that this group of Self-less players won’t get it done in Allen. Let’s start a Jayhawk centric weekend off with a basketball blowout to get prepped for the victory against Texas on Saturday.
Kansas 90, Southern Utah 65.
Andy Mitts
This is the game where we find out just how much attention this team pays to every game ahead of them and how much they are prone to look ahead. With the Battle 4 Atlantis coming up next week and having just come off of a big win over Duke, it might be reasonable to think that they could take this game a bit lightly. Especially when you add in that the bench might be a bit thin tonight with precautionary injury benchings.
But Bill Self comes back next week after being sidelined for the first four games of the season. I don't think that these guys want the first words out of his mouth to be the dreaded "soft" name-calling. This is a team that they should dominate, even shorthanded. The big guys need to get it going in this one to help figure out what that rotation is going to look like going forward.
Kansas 91, Southern Utah 59.
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