Still, Coach Roy Williams wasn’t happy and suggested after the game that the Jayhawks played an un-Kansas-like game. The Jayhawks obviously come with high expectations.

The game was a bit sloppy. The Jayhawks played quite well for several spurts in the first half, using a 13-0 run mid-way through the half and a 10-0 run at the end of the half to open a 15-point halftime lead that sent them to the locker room firmly in control of the game, 49-34. The second half, though, the Jayhawks seemed to be going through the motions. Not so much on offense, where they continued to wrack up the points. But on defense the Jayhawks seemed a step slow to provide the help-side defense, a bit slow to move their feet and generally content to let their overpowering offense—which was more than capable of outscoring Middle Tennessee State for as long as the teams chose to play--substitute for the scrappy no-prisoners defense that has been the mark of Kansas teams under Williams.

Soon after the start of the second half the Jayhawks briefly stretched the lead to 19 points, and it looked like the good guys would quickly turn the contest into a blowout. But then the Jayhawks allowed Middle Tennessee St. to hang around and to chip at the lead and get the crowd get back into the game. Twice the Blue Raiders closed to within 11 points, the second time with only a little over 6 minutes remaining.

The Jayhawks then woke up a bit and put the home team back in its place, extending the lead to 20 points for the first time in the closing minutes of the game.

Four Jayhawks scored in double figures and seven others scored. In addition to Gregory with 22 points, Chenowith scored 16 and Boschee and Bradford each scored 10. Collison added 9 points, 5 rebounds and four assists for another solid outing. As a team the Jayhawks continue to rip the nets, hitting 60% of their shots from the field. The Jayhawks were only 3-of-8 behind the arc, and Jeff Boschee cooled off and hit only two of his six attempts from long range. Not bad for an average guard, but well below the 70+% mark with which he entered the game.

Thoughts:
Over the years the Jayhawks have had worse problems than an offense so high-powered that the players were complacent on defense. Still, letting the offense make up for mediocre defense is no way to win against quality teams. It also leaves a team vulnerable to a bad-shooting night. Besides, who wants to emulate Billy Tubbs’ OU teams or Tom Penders’ Texas teams. It sounded as if this was the source of Williams’ unhappiness after the game. Although KU finished with a 10-rebound advantage, for much of the second half the Blue Raiders were getting a lot of offensive rebounds. They just seemed more active going for the loose balls and getting position under the boards. They also seemed to be playing with more intensity.

One of the symptoms indicating that the defense still isn’t where it should be is the number of fouls the Jayhawks are wracking up. Once again today the Jayhawks out-fouled the opposition, something the Jayhawks have done regularly all season. On the year, the Jayhawks have committed 127 fouls to the opposition’s 107. More significantly, the Jayhawks have attempted only 107 foul shots compared to 137 for the opposition. This trend hasn’t been as noticeable as it might have been in other years because the Jayhawks’ depth has generally kept any individual player from getting into foul trouble, but it is worrying. Georgia was able to stay in the game against Kansas because the Jayhawks put them on the line so many times.

Most of these fouls have come not so much because the Jayhawks haven’t used their heads but because they haven’t used their feet. Defense is all about moving your feet to maintain proper defensive positioning. It means sliding with your own man so that he doesn’t get a step to the basket and it means sliding over to cut off someone else’s man. It isn’t very glamorous and is flat out hard work to do right. It takes a lot of discipline. For the Jayhawks to be a truly good team, as opposed to a very good scoring team, they need to more uniformly play classic Kansas defense.

I suspect the defense will come around. Four of the Jayhawks’ key players are playing their first year at KU (five if you count Johnson, who played very limited minutes last year.) It takes time to learn to play with the defensive intensity Williams requires and it takes time to instinctively know where to be when playing help defense.

Williams also wasn’t fond of the team’s decision making, suggesting that the Jayhawks weren’t playing particularly smart basketball. They committed 19 turnovers today, right at their season average and at least a third too many. A good team shouldn’t turn the ball over more than a dozen or so times a game. When KU gets to that point they will start putting away teams like Pepperdine and Middle Tennessee State early and decisively. Even shooting only 50%, those extra possessions will translate into about 10 more points a game—the ones scored by KU and the ones not scored by the opposition off of KU’s turnovers.

Not that everything about the game was disappointing. Heck, a 20-point win on the road shouldn’t be considered disappointing at all, really. Kenny Gregory, for one, was brilliant. He was unstoppable in the first half, scoring 18 points on perfect 9-of-9 shooting. Not one of those shots was from more than point blank range. Not only did the Jayhawks force 14 turnovers in the first half, which allowed Kenny to demonstrate some truly beautiful dunks, he worked free on the baseline in the half-court game for some easy hoops. When he hit his first shot in the second half he set a KU record for most consecutive fieldgoals, breaking the record held by Mark Randall.

The other Jayhawk who really stood out today was Eric Chenowith. He played the way many have been hoping and expecting he would play all season. He shot just six time, but made every one of them. With four free throws on five attempts he finished with 16 points, his season high.

It wasn’t simply that Eric’s shots were falling. He was taking good shots, or to say the same thing from the opposite end, he didn’t take the poor shots he sometimes reverts to. No fade-aways and no turnarounds from 12 feet. He even passed up a couple of opportunities to shoot from the key. And he was aggressive when he had the ball in the blocks.

Chenowith also handed out 4 assists, which is a sign that his game is maturing. He’s becoming much quicker at recognizing the double team and passing the ball to the open player rather than spending four or five seconds trying to back in for a tough shot. The only down-side today was his five turnovers. Overall, though, it was another positive step forward for Chenowith.

Jeff Carey also contributed some nice minutes. He scored 7 points in seven minutes in the second half, and his scoring provided a nice lift at a time when the Jayhawks were playing at their flattest. Jeff has played very limited minutes this season, caught behind Chenowith, Collison, Gooden, Johnson and Earl for minutes in the paint, but with Earl sidelines with his knee problems and Williams evidently unsatisfied with the play of other post players he was given an opportunity today. Whether his performance today will translate into more minutes will be interesting to track.

Settling In: When the season started there was a great deal of speculation about who the starters would be. When Williams announced the starters for the first game he suggested that unlike most years the starters might vary from game to game and he wouldn’t stick with one set starting lineup as he typically has in the past.

Six games into the season, though, there isn’t any sign that any of the starters will be replaced any time soon. Boschee seems to have solidified his position at the point. In addition to shooting over 60% behind the arc, he’s sporting a sparkling 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio and is playing well on defense. As impressive as Hinrich has been, especially for a freshman, Jeff is clearly the lead lead-guard.

At power forward, Collison seems to have solidified his position, as well, although Gooden is immensely talented. Gooden is averaging 2 more point and 1.3 more rebounds in 4 fewer minutes per game. Gooden, though, is a bit less polished, a bit more prone to turnovers and a bit more prone to be out of position on defense. These two are both worthy of starting, but neither has done anything that would suggest that a change in roles is in the offing.

While Luke has provided a nice offensive spark, Bradford has a lock on the starting small forward spot. He’s the Jayhawks Mr. Everything. Absent a broken leg, Nick will start.

Gregory, after losing his starting spot last year, has put a hammer lock on it this season, leading the Jayhawks in scoring, while playing much improved defense.

Unfair shots: It isn’t always easy being a high-profile player for a high-profile college basketball team. Consider Eric Chenowith. Eric, after finishing last season playing very solid basketball, carrying the Jayhawks at times, was selected for a number of preseason honors, including the Playboy pre-season All-American team. But he has started this season slowly. As a result, he’s come into some criticism on the various Internet boards and call-in shows. Some of that criticism has been fair. Some has been unfair.

The unfair comments reached their zenith last week when a reporter for the University Daily Kansan accused Chenowith of being lazy and arrogant. The reporter opened his column by suggesting that while Chenowith was selected as a preseason Playboy All-American, “he’s also shown traits associated more with playboys than All-Americans — arrogance and laziness."

I thought the Kansan reporter was out of line. The body of the column was fair comment. The reporter simply noted that Chenowith’s performance as measured by the statistics was down from last year and that he wasn't playing like one of the best centers in the country right now. Fair enough.

But I thought the reporter was way out of line when he suggested Chenowith was lazy and arrogant. That’s a harsh comment, yet the reporter didn’t make any effort to back it up. He didn’t include any evidence from Chenowith’s teammates, coaches, professors, friends or associates that he’s either lazy or arrogant. Nor did he really point to any behavior by Chenowith on the court that points to either laziness or arrogance. He simply jumped to that conclusion because Chenowith hasn’t been playing up to expectations.

That’s sloppy journalism. It’s also unfair. There is a big difference between playing passively, not hitting your shots and being off your game, things Chenowith might fairly be accused of in his first five games, and being lazy and arrogant. A big difference.

I don’t bring this up, however, simply because I want to be a watch-dog over journalistic transgressions. I bring it up because the reporter fell victim to the unfortunate and growing tendency of many fans to personalize athletic performances that are disappointing by assigning personality flaws as the cause. Just because a player misses a free throw doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have heart. Just because a player isn’t as aggressive on the court as another doesn’t mean he’s a wimp as a person. Just because a player passes off to a teammate at the end of a game rather than shooting himself doesn’t mean he lacks courage.

Sometimes personality flaws are the cause of a player’s poor performance. But it's awfully hard to diagnose that from a seat in the stands. Perhaps a player is heartsick over a girlfriend, perhaps he's stressed by finals, perhaps fan expectations are causing him to play tight, perhaps he’s worried about his sick mother or brother. Or perhaps he has a hemorrhoid that makes it uncomfortable to play. Who the heck knows? Commenting on a player’s performance is fair game. Speculating about his personality based only on his play isn't to my mind.

Eric has always represented the school well and, as far as I can tell, wants to play as well as he can and do the best he can to help the Jayhawks win basketball games just like every other member of the team. He shouldn’t be publicly psychoanalyzed by Kansan reporters or any of the rest of us simply because he hasn’t performed as well as we or him wish he had.

It is, after all, only a game.