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

Summary The stats tend to look like this: FGs-KU 48%, NU 33%; Rebs-KU 55, NU 34; 3PTers-KU 50%, NU 16%. Final score: Kansas 96, Nebraska 57. That final came after a fairly evenly played second half. The Jayhawks were about as good as they could be in the first half, hitting their first six 3-point attempts and rushing out to a 20 point lead before the 2nd media timeout. They never looked back and cruised to their second Big 12 conference victory. Nick Collison paced the Jayhawks with 20 points and 13 rebound, while Drew Gooden added 16 and 12. Three other players got into double figures as Jeff Boschee had 16, Kirk Hinrich contributed 13, and Wayne Simien had 12 points to go with 10 boards. Kansas won their 13th straight game since their season-opening loss to Ball State. This game was the first since the Jayhawks became the Associated Press's #1 team in America on Monday. The Hawks did all they could to prove they were deserving of that ranking. All-in-all, this game was a nice tune-up for the incredibly tough run of games that the Jayhawks have coming up. Saturday, they travel to UCLA, followed by games at Oklahoma State and back in Lawrence the following Saturday for a matchup with #5 Oklahoma. Analysis I must admit, since the game tonight wasn't televised locally in Austin, TX, I had to go out to watch the game. And with the route on in the early stages of the 2nd half, my mind was wondering a bit. I had Florida at Tennessee on the left TV, Missouri at Iowa State on the right, with the Jayhawks planted firmly on the biggest screen in the middle (and a special thanks to "Cool River Cafe" for showing the game in its entirety, with sound, on the big-screen in the room we've gotten all year...even though a grand total of three people showed up. Two of them, including me, were in my party). With the other two games going down to the wire, which games would you have watched? That being said, I did pay close attention to the main event...knowing I would be writing this, and I do have some observations to contribute from this lopsided victory. Defense: This Kansas team defends on the perimeter about as well as any team Roy Williams has had. The guards deny the "first" pass on the wings, the help side is sound, and the interior players are quick enough to guard smaller forwards and cause problems for bigger front-line players. Really, I think this team is good enough defensively to compete favorable in games when the opponent makes a concerted effort to slow the game down. That can't be said for all teams that want to push the ball and play as fast as this year's version of the Jayhawks. I'm not sure this team gets as much respect as it deserves defensively, because they pressure the ball and take gambles and give up some easy buckets. That's one consequence of trying to play up-tempo basketball. I suggest to all of you, really pay attention when the opponents don't get a shot in transition and have to run some half-court offense. Watch how hard these kids work on the defensive end of the floor. I think what you see might provide an even higher opinion of this team than you might already have. Coincidentally, I think it is this half-court defense that will make this team very hard to beat as the season progresses. The Freshmen: I don't like studying statistics in a game like this. They tend to all look good and lead to conclusions that can be blown pretty well full of holes. However, I would like to use them to point out the play of the freshmen. I touched on the freshmen after the Colorado game, and they continued to shine as conference play progressed tonight. Aaron Miles (the only freshman starter) had 12 assists with just 2 turnovers. Wayne Simien notched a double-double off the bench with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Keith Langford and Michael Lee also came off the bench to combine for 12 point, 6 boards, and a couple of 3-pointers. The freshmen continued their consistency and showed more signs of great things to come in Kansas' very near future. But, why think of the future at this point when you've got a team that hasn't lost in 6 weeks and is ranked #1 in the nation? I can't think of a good reason. About the only thing that KU didn't do well tonight was shoot free throws. The Hawks were just 55%, but upon closer examination, a couple of things can help excuse the poor shooting. First, it's very difficult to stay focused and concentrate on foul shooting when you're blowing a team out. Second, the players that got to the foul line aren't the best shooters KU has. In fact, Hinrich and Boschee combined for exactly ZERO attempts. I apologize that I don't have much else to say about this one. It's very difficult to find objective things to comment on in a game like this. For most of the night, the Jayhawks looked like they were playing at an entirely different speed than the Cornhuskers. Remember that this is a team that looked pretty solid in a 7 point loss at Missouri on Saturday. I'm not saying that Nebraska will be one of our tougher tests, I'm just trying to point out that this big win for the Hawks means something. Nebraska has some talent, albeit young, and should improve greatly under Barry Collier's control in the next few years. I think this young squad was a bit in awe of the Allen Fieldhouse atmosphere early (can you blame them?) and never recovered. Expect a much closer game in the rematch later this year in Lincoln. Everyone should be able to watch the UCLA game on Saturday. I think it's the only game that CBS is showing in that timeslot, so it's nation-wide. Hopefully, the Hawks can bottle the energy they came out with in the first ten minutes tonight and apply it to that entire contest. If that happens, I think you'll be seeing a very upbeat summary from me Saturday evening.

Email the author

Rock Chalk.... Robert