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Six games, six victories!! That's the biggest statistic so far. After the last two years the sound of 6 and 0 is pretty sweet. The Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders fell to the Jayhawks rather easily but this was anything but an easy game. The Blue Raiders were overmatched in size and talent but acquitted themselves very well. They played very aggressively and physically and gave the Jayhawks some new looks that will serve us well as we move toward the meat of our schedule. We managed to finish the game shooting over 50% again (50.7%) and over 40% from three point land (8 for 17 or 47.1%). I thought the defense of MTS was rather good so these numbers are very satisfactory. At the same time we held MTS to 38.6% shooting. Only UCLA has topped 40% shooting against KU this year. We have not faced a particularly strong shooting team so this statistic doesn't mean much other than it is certainly a nice trend. We shot 70% from the free throw line and if you take away the misses by Harrison in the last minute we shot 78%. That is much better and more in line with what we should be doing. We also dominated on the boards 49 to 27. The Blue Raiders were not big but they did play tough. Eric was huge again tonight with 12 boards. No one got in foul trouble which really gives the game a better appeal. Foul trouble seems to put a cloud over the game at least for me. Eric has done much better the last two games after playing the hatchet man early on in the season. KU assisted on 65.7% of the field goals tonight which is below the season average of 69.5% but not a major significance. Our defensive statistics were fairly good tonight. We blocked 6 shots or 10.5% of their shots. We should expect to block 10% of the opponents shots so that was right on target. We stole the ball 10 times which was 11.8% of their possessions. There again we should expect to steal 10% of their possessions. Our overall defensive statistics are improving. The only slight dark spot statistically was their PPP (Points per Possession). We should always aim to limit our opponents to a PPP of 0.75 or lower. Tonight the Blue Raiders got 0.776 PPP. If you look at the big 4 defensive statistics, shooting %, PPP, Blocks/FGA, and Steals/Possession we achieved our goal in 3 out of 4. Offensively we were okay but not great. Actually we were a little better than okay. The big statistics there are PPP, shooting %, Assist/TO, and %LOB (percent loss of ball, or the TO/Possessions). We should strive to have a PPP of 0.90 and tonight we were at 0.968. The shooting % goal is at least 55% adjusted (adjusting for 1.5 for every trey made). We were 56.5% which is good. The A/TO was 1.35 which is below the goal of 1.4. The %LOB was 17.9% which was above the goal of 15%. Some other fun statistics are % of offensive rebounds. Do you realize we have grabbed 50% of the rebounds this season on the offensive glass? That means every time we miss a shot we have just as much chance to get it as the opponent. Tonight we grabbed 55.9% of the offensive boards. On the defensive side we are grabbing 82.9% of the boards and tonight we grabbed 89.7%. Our goals should be 40% of offensive boards and 80% of defensive boards. Obviously we succeeded on both ends tonight. A key to winning is getting off shots. The statistic FGA/TO is tied to %LOB but measures something slightly different. We should strive for a 4 to 1 ratio. On the season we are at 3.4 but tonight we were at 4.06. Overall pretty doggone good statistics against a respectable opponent. As far as NEP we are continuing to rack up some nice numbers. Tonight the team totalled an NEP of 118.3. That is down from the 129, 123, and 133 from the last three games but considerably better than the 107 and 98 in the first two games. We are clearly playing good ball and getting better. Incidentally the last two games we have scored 27% of our points on three pointers compared to last season where the number was about 16.5% and also about 16.5% through the first 4 games this season. Gee, could that have anything to do with Luke being back? Individually Eric was the man again tonight. Say what you will but for my money Eric is playing great. It is easy to say that he certainly should be given the quality of opponent. But the same could be said for all the other players and they aren't putting up the kind of numbers Eric is. He had a team leading gross NEP of 21.7 and a team leading net NEP of 34.6. Both of these are very very nice scores. Kirk was close on gross NEP with 21.4 and a ways back on net NEP at 26 because of the minutes he played. Both are very nice totals. Drew was next with a solid performance and a gross NEP of 17.7. His Net NEP actually was second on the team at a very good 27.2. All three of these guys had good games. As for Kenny he came back to earth with a mortal performance of 16.2 (gross) and 23.2 (net). Not stellar numbers but on this team when there are plenty of guys to step up that is okay. Certainly they are at least adequate. Jeff and Nick had par performances but nothing to get real excited about. They did their jobs and posted acceptable numbers. Nick had a net/gross of 11.8/18.8 and Jeff had a net/gross of 16.9/19.8. Actually Jeff's numbers are up considerably and if he could post these numbers every game we would be very pleased. Luke only had 18 minutes and had pretty good numbers at 8.2 and 18.8 (gross and net). When every player is above 18 net you can pretty much expect to win or at least come very close. Kirk, Kenny, and Jeff all got dinged because of their shooting percentages. Kirk was 2 for 6 (missing all 4 2 pointers he shot oddly enough), Kenny was slightly better at 5 for 11 and Jeff was 7 for 16. Luke on the other hand hit 4 of 7 and 3 of 5 on treys. Nice job for Luke. Jeff hit 3 very nice 3 pointers but also missed 6 others. Kirk continues to sizzle from behind the arc and is now 68.4% on the year. Wow!!! Drew with his one miss at the charity stripe is coming precariously close to taking over the dubious distinction of the worst free throw shooter on the team. Kenny is currently at 45% and Drew is at 48.6%. This will be fun to watch as the season progresses. Eric continues to be the board king with 65 on the year and surprisingly Kenny is second boosted by another strong 9 rebound performance against MTS. Drew had 8 tonight. Here is another big statistic, Kenny leads the team in offensive rebounds. That's right. Drew is actually third behind Eric also. I will be surprised if Drew finishes the year anywhere other than 1st on the team but this is very good news. I don't think it's a knock on Drew nearly as much as it is a credit to Eric and Kenny. When they are crashing the boards there just simply aren't as many for Drew and others. With 3 steals tonight, Jeff moved into a tie with Nick for the team lead. I really like the way Jeff is playing defense this year. Also his ball handling is downright impressive. Again tonight he dished out 6 assists to only 2 TO's Kirk did have 10 assists but also had 5 TO's. On the year Jeff has an A/TO of 3.88 and Kirk is at 2.33. Both are good but Jeff's is simply sublime. Let's hope he keeps it up. Eric is still holding first place as the most likely to shoot with Kenny second and Drew third. Luke is fourth but something tells me he may get closer to these other guys soon. Luke is by far the most likely to shoot the trey, by far. Jeff is 2nd and Kirk third. Drew and Eric get the line the most and Nick edges out Kirk for third. Eric is still rebounding in the stratosphere at 18.81 per 40 minutes. Kenny is inching up on Drew with an 11.46 to Drew's 12.58. Eric is clearly the man this year on the boards. Here is a table with the top 10 performances so far this year. The player rating is a formula using the NEP taking the (gross NEP*9+net NEP)/10. Boise State Kenny Gregory 35.55 Washburn Kirk Hinrich 31.50 Washburn Eric Chenowith 31.28 North Dakota Nick Collison 29.98 North Dakota Kenny Gregory 26.20 Washburn Kenny Gregory 25.43 Boise State Eric Chenowith 25.37 Boise State Drew Gooden 23.84 St. John's Drew Gooden 23.44 Middle Tennessee State Eric Chenowith 22.95 Let's hope all of these are eclipsed as the season goes on. Another thing that is becoming a trend is the unpredictability of who will step up and make the plays. So far we have had at least 4 or 5 guys in every game bring their B+ or A game. Tonight, no one had a bad night but no one had a particularly great night either.