Then the Jayhawks woke up and the evening turned into a nightmare for Xavier.  The Jayhawks used a 21-6 run midway through the first half to open a 13-point lead, which was slightly reduced to only 10 points at the half.  In the first half the Jayhawks had 20 assists as a team, only one shy of the KU record for assists in a half.  KU finished with 36 for the game, tying  KU's record for assists in a game, which they set against Kentucky in 1989.

In the second half the Jayhawks delivered an early knock-out punch, outscoring Xavier by 8 points over the first five minutes.  At that point, facing an 18 point deficit and the waves of KU players Roy Williams continued to insert, Xavier seemed to fold its tents.  The final 18 minutes of the game resembled one of the exhibition games, with the Jayhawks scoring seemingly at will.  The only difference was that the Jayhawks were a lot less sloppy than they had been against the exhibition opponents, or even last night against Georgia.  KU finished with 17 turnovers.  Not a great figure, but pretty good when you realize that they had five of those in the first three minutes.

Things turned around for the Jayhawks when Hinrich came in.  Boschee may still be slowed a bit laterally because of his sore ankles, but Hinrich was much more effective at breaking down the press than was Boschee.  Kirk appears a bit quicker with the ball and passes on the run more effectively.  Not that Boschee didn't play a great game.  He did, scoring a team-high 16 points without a miss and dishing 2 assists in 20 minutes.  Hinrich, though, was an assist machine, with 9 in 18 minutes.  Kirk and Jeff make a nice one-two punch.

Axtell was just plain exciting for the second straight night.  After entering for the first time seven minutes into the game he rang up 8 quick points in the space of 2 minutes.  His first bucket, an NBA -range three-pointer gave KU its first lead of the game, 21-19, at the 12:00 mark and started the Jayhawks' run.  He finished with 14 points in 14 minutes. 

Axtell is going to be hard to keep off the floor.  He's playing hard on defense, even if he sometimes gets out of position, and is scoring in huge bunches.  His height makes him hard to guard and he dribbles well enough to take his man to the basket if he guards Luke too closely on the wing.  And if need be, at 6-9 he can post-up his defender.

How scary is it for future KU opponents that KU's 10th (perhaps 11th) man off the bench, Ashante Johnson, scored 10 points on 5-of-6 shooting in only 12 minutes.  Those weren't garbage points.  He scored six key points toward the end of the first half when Xavier was scoring with the Jayhawks basket for basket in an attempt to get back in the game.  He showed nice touch on his jumper from 12 feet and some strong moves in the post.  The way he played tonight he is likely to see increasing minutes in the post.

KU's post play is really a muddle right now.  Both of the freshman, Nick Collison and Drew Gooden, showed flashes tonight, but also looked like freshman at times.  Gooden grabbed a team-high 11 rebounds, scored 9 points and dished 5 assists, but again shot a woeful percentage from the field, 3 for 10, and seemed to struggle to find his scoring opportunities within the flow of the offense.  Collison played a solid game with 9 rebounds and 6 points, all in the second half, but committed 5 turnovers and was only so-so on defense. Eric Chenowith started slowly, and had difficulty hanging onto the ball before scoring 11 points and finally displaying some solid, power post moves.  Yet, in 25 minutes he grabbed only 1 rebound.  One.

The Jayhawks have a lot of talent in the post, its just all a work in progress right now.  Chenowith should round into form with more games, as he did last year.  After starting the season poorly, as he has this season, he was routinely posting double-doubles in conference play.  The two freshman are both blessed with loads of talent.  It's still raw talent, though, and isn't translated into quality play on a consistent basis yet.  When these three become more reliable, they will dominate a lot of teams.  For the moment, though, KU's post play seems unpredictable.

The one thing the Jayhawks did very, very well was shooting three-pointers.  Overall, the Jayhawks hit 7 of 14, but those figures understate how good the Jayhawks were because Crider and Nooner were a combined 0-for-3 in the final two minutes.  Jeff and Luke were a combined 6-for-7.  

More tomorrow after the Georgia Tech game.......