Related pages Game summary Coach Williams' comments Box score Season stats Possession analysis

Nice support from New York. NOT. Granted, this was an early game, but the first thing I noticed at tip-off was how many empty seats there were in the Garden. This was Kansas-UCLA, two of the greatest programs in college basketball history, in the kick-off tournament of the season, and New Yorkers were treating it like…..well, like K-State-Baylor. Second thing I noticed: Drew Gooden’s shaved head. Looks good…..smooth. Kenny Gregory hit two 3-pointers tonight, tying the number of threes he hit all last season. Make no mistake: Kenny is not the second coming of Terry Brown, but he will draw more attention on the perimeter than he has in the past. I felt so bad for Luke when I heard of the ankle sprain he suffered this week. He was playing awesome going into this game and it must have killed him to not play in this tournament or even make the trip to New York. I was really looking forward to see if his all-around game from the exhibitions was going to show up tonight. Mario Kinsey got some serious minutes (19, I believe?) and showed that he is not going to be a pine-rider this season. He had a nice bucket in transition and ran the team with confidence. In addition, he played solid defense and continued to avoid playing like a freshman……for the most part. He is going to quickly become a fan favorite. Our 3-point defense was not pretty to look at. Sure, one could argue that UCLA was stroking the ball well, but I noticed numerous occasions where they had clean looks at the basket for open threes. At one point, I was asking myself if the Jayhawks got complacent after they jumped out to such a dominating lead early in the game. I definitely think the perimeter defense needs some serious attention. The Jayhawks scored 99 points, but 98 points is way too much to give up to an average offensive UCLA team. UCLA freshman T.J. Cummings grew up right before our eyes. That guy is a pure stud and we will be hearing his name a lot over the next four seasons…..if he stays around that long. Check out the box score to see his stats. Lots of whistles. I know that the referees are going to be cutting back on the physical play and I know they are still learning how to call the games, BUT……there were an awful lot of touch fouls called in this game. It’s still taking me awhile to adjust to this new style of officiating. At one point, Chenowith, Collison and Hinrich had four fouls apiece and it seemed like the game stopped every time down the court. Thankfully, UCLA’s Matt Barnes missed 3 of 4 critical free throws down the stretch. If he hadn’t, we may have been watching KU in the consolation game tomorrow. Eric Chenowith is playing much better. All of his hard work this past summer is paying off. He is noticeably stronger, more confident in his game, is rebounding better, and is taking the ball strong to the basket. Nice job, Eric.

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Keep Rockin’ and Chalkin’... MJ