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

Summary The Kansas Jayhawks continued their tear through the Big 12 conference with an 86-74 victory over the Texas A&M Aggies today in College Station. The win boosted KU's record to 17-2, 6-0 in the conference, and sets the Jayhawks up nicely for Monday's matchup with the Missouri Tigers in Allen Fieldhouse. Drew Gooden led the Hawks with 22 points and added 13 rebounds. Nick Collison chipped in 19 points and 8 rebounds. Two other Jayhawks were in double figures in scoring as Kirk Hinrich scored 15, and Aaron Miles added 10. Hinrich and Miles also combined for 15 assists, while committing just 2 turnovers each. Texas A&M's attack was fairly predictable as Bernard King was the only player in double figures, scoring 22 but only shooting 8-19 from the floor. Analysis (from a hotel in Aggieland) I'll keep this short, since the food and nightlife of College Station, TX is calling me from just outside the door. Drew Gooden was very big today, especially in the first half. Drew went into the break with 13 points and 8 rebounds. No one else on the team had more than 3 boards at that point. He was also 4-7 from the floor at that time, with the only black eye on the half being 3 turnovers and one ill-advised 3 point attempt. However, all things considered Drew had a very good and efficient first half. He finished with 22 points and 13 boards, but had 11 of those rebounds on the defensive end. He definitely did his part to keep the Aggies from getting easy second chance points. Drew looked very much like an All-American today. Kirk Hinrich also had a nice first half, missing just one shot on his way to 11 points before the break. Hinrich was his usual solid self, but his play was especially important in the first half as the Aggies came out very fired up and ready to pull off the upset after surprising Texas on the road on Wednesday night. The Jayhawks shot very well from the foul line today, only missing a couple of free throws on the day to shoot 21-25 for 84%. Gooden and Collison combined for a 15-16 effort from the charity stripe. Foul shooting is one of the few weaknesses of this team, and it was nice to see them excel in that area today. Two things separated Kansas from this Texas A&M team. First, the Aggies had no answer for KU's inside play. Gooden and Collison had very little trouble getting the ball inside and converting. Take away a few turnovers (Gooden entry pass that went through Collison's hands, a couple of other fumbles when guys were making moves), and the Jayhawks were near perfect inside. Second, Kansas was able to push the ball up the floor to get baskets before the Aggies were really ready to start playing defense. A couple of times Kansas took the ball out of the net after a Texas A&M bucket and scored before the Aggies fans were finished cheering for it. This fast play caused a couple of turnovers, as it usually does, but Kansas limited to turnover count to 17 and managed to keep A&M from making any big runs to get back into the game. All-in-all, a very workman-like win for the Jayhawks. Don't take away from this the impression that Kansas played great basketball...they certainly didn't. They did however play well enough to win this game and tuned up nicely for Monday's matchup. After opening a double figure lead late in the first half, the Jayhawks seemed to cruise for the rest of the game. The Hawks did stretch the lead to over 20 in the second half, but sustained an Aggie run to coast to victory. This was the game on the schedule that I thought was most likely to be treated as a breather by the kids, as it falls between UCLA, OSU, OU, @Iowa State, and Missouri. I didn't expect 40 minutes of intensity from the Jayhawks in this contest, so it certainly didn't disappoint me when I didn't get it. Reed Arena in College Station is a very cozy place to play college basketball. It's a fairly new arena that holds around 13,000 people. They had an announced attendance of over 10,000 today...many wearing Crimson and Blue. It's a bit odd for a college court in that there is no overhead scoreboard above the court. There is only a "big" scoreboard at one end, so if you are sitting at that end...all you can see is the score and time left, as all the foul and player information is behind you. My only gripe with today's game: two small girls (probably around 10) sitting in the row in front of us made a "Rock Chalk Jayhawk" sign. Upon holding it up, a Reed Arena staff member told the girls that no signs were allowed (after that, they complied the entire game). Meanwhile, some Aggie students about 3 rows in front of us (we were 9 rows from the floor behind the basket that KU shot at in the first half) had used Jayhawk player names to make a mildly vulgar sign. They were never told not to display it. I was very disappointed in that, as I had watched the girls make their sign that they were never allowed to display. Unfortunate and uneven policing.

Email the author

Rock Chalk.... Robert