The
Jayhawks rolled to a relatively easy 82-67 win over ever-dangerous
Princeton Wednesday night in Lawrence.
Ashante Johnson, averaging only 6 minutes a game, sparked the
Jayhawks with 18 minutes. He
scored a career-high 16 points and grabbed 8 rebounds.
Nick Bradford led the Jayhawks with 17 points, breaking his
recent slump, and Jeff Boschee scored 14 points on 3-of-8 three-point
shooting. Johnson, the
tenth player in KU’s ten-man rotation was called upon to play big
minutes because Drew Gooden was out with a hip-pointer and Eric
Chenowith languished on the bench most of the half with foul trouble.
The
Jayhawks were in control of the game almost from the start.
The teams played to a 9-9 tie over the first 3:50.
Then the Jayhawks went on a 9-0 run kicked off by a Jeff
Boschee three-pointer and never relinquished the lead.
Princeton pulled within four points on several occasions in the
middle portion of the first half, but the Jayhawks out-scored the
Tigers 17-8 over the last five minutes of the half for a 41-28
halftime lead.
Princeton
never got closer than 10 points in the second half, and for most of
the half the Jayhawks kept the lead between 15 and 20 points. The Tigers continued to play hard, but the Jayhawks were
effective the entire game at keeping Princeton from getting many easy
points off their trademark back-door cuts to the basket.
Coach
Roy Williams was forced to go deep down the bench in the second half
when Eric Chenowith picked up his fourth foul at the 17-minute mark.
With Drew Gooden injured and not playing, that meant big
minutes for both Ashante Johnson and little-used Jeff Carey.
Both answered the bell in resounding fashion.
Carey didn’t take a shot from the field, but Williams
credited him with the best game ever played by a KU player without
taking a shot. He played
17 minutes and did a very effective job of blocking off the waves of
Princeton players cutting to the basket.
He drew two charges while picking up only two fouls.
Johnson
played just a great game. He
hit 6 of his 8 fieldgoal attempts, hit all four of his free throws and
grabbed 8 rebounds playing only 18 minutes.
His play tonight poured a bucket of fuel on the fire raging on
the Internet boards regarding his lack of playing time.
Johnson has been KU’s most efficient offensive player this
year on a per-minute basis. Coming
into this game he was averaging 3.8 points a game playing only 6.3
minutes per game, the highest points per minute ratio on he team.
Johnson has seemed to come up with a big basket every time he
has entered a game and didn’t appear to be hurting the team on
defense, at least as far as the average fan could discern.
Predictably, then, a number of fans have publicly wondered why
he wasn’t playing more.
Williams
seemed to partially answer that question tonight.
In his post-game comments he said of Johnson, "[He]
has an ability to score. He's
got to get better on the defensive end and taking care of his
assignments."
While
that answer is undoubtedly true, one has to wonder whether Johnson is
also simply a victim of KU’s vaunted depth.
Chenowith, Collison and Gooden have each been playing well,
even if both Collison and Gooden have made their share of freshman
mistakes. For KU to play
to their potential in March, both Gooden and Collison need to be
seasoned, veteran players, and the only way to get them there is to
play them now. The same
is true of Chenowith. Chenowith
has struggled a fair portion of the season, yet he continues to log
more minutes than anyone on the team. Williams has said on several
occasions that the Jayhawks won’t be as good as they can be without
Chenowith anchoring the paint, and Williams has seemed intent on
playing Eric 25-plus minutes a game on the assumption that consistent
playing time will round him into form.
That’s all perfectly logical, but with those three players
logging a combined 75 minutes or so a game, that has left only five or
so for Johnson.
It
will be interesting to see if Johnson gets more minutes from here on
out and if so from whom he takes them.
This is one of those coaching decisions that has no easy
answers and will be second-guessed regardless of what Williams does.
Uncharacteristically,
free throws were one of the Jayhawks most potent offensive weapons
tonight. KU hit 22 of 23, and for one of the few times this season
attempted more charities than the opponent.
The Jayhawks also dominated on the boards, out-rebounding the
visitors 41-17. Chenowith
and Collison out-rebounded the Tigers by themselves. Chenowith had 8
rebounds in the first half and finished with 10 despite sitting most
of the second half with four fouls.
Collison grabbed 8 boards in 22 minutes.
Nick
Bradford played one of his finest games of the season, scoring 17
points in 23 minutes. He
sparked the Jayhawks early in the game with 11 of the Jayhawks first
22 points, including his first three-pointer of the season.
Nick had been quiet on offense the last several games, and his
average had fallen to less than 7 points a game.
Nick isn’t asked to be one of the primary scorers in the
offense, but needs to be a threat to score.
Seeing him break out the way he did in the first half,
consequently, was a good sign.
Super
Jeff.
Nick Bradford is the emotional leader of this team, and Kenny
Gregory is vastly improved, but Jeff Boschee would get my vote for
both MVP and most-improved-player 11 games into the season.
Jeff is playing the best basketball of anyone on the team right
now. He has improved every facet of his game since last season. He has
increased his shooting percentage by a remarkable 20 points (.58, up
from .38), and has more than doubled his three-point shooting
percentage (from .31 to .63). Just
as importantly, his assist to turnover ratio, after languishing at 1-1
last season is well above 2-1 this season.
His assists are way up and his turnovers are way down.
Beyond
that, his defense is vastly improved.
He’s become something of a defensive stopper for the
Jayhawks. Against OSU he
was practically in Scoonie Penn's shorts most of the night.
While he has a tendency to pick up silly fouls 25 feet from the
hoop, even his fouling is improved over last season.
Last season he tended to pick up fouls after his man had gotten
a step on him. This year his fouls seem to be coming mostly because he’s
being too aggressive trying to make steals.
His man is almost never getting that first step on him this
season.
Jeff’s
overall decision making is vastly improved, as well.
Against OSU he was facing arguably the best backcourt in the
country. Yet he didn't
commit a turnover, dished 6 assists and scored 15 points.
And generally, the team just seems to run better when he is at
the helm, which is, of course, the mark of a good point guard.
Hinrich is going to be a terrific player for the Jayhawks, but
the speculation from a month ago that Kirk might push Jeff out of the
starting lineup has subsided to less than a whisper.
Jeff played 29 minutes tonight, the most by far of any Jayhawk,
and I suspect that he is likely to continue to lead the Jayhawks in
minutes. More than any
other player, the team seems markedly better when he is in the game.
And that is the mark of a team MVP.
Of course, all of the above doesn’t even
touch on his deadly outside shooting.
Eleven games into the season its time to stop talking about Boschee
being on a hot streak and to start thinking about a record-setting
season. Boschee was
shooting a remarkable 63.4 percent (26-of-41) from three-point range
coming into the game tonight and is making a serious run at the
Jayhawk record for best three-point percentage in a season, currently
held by Jeff Gueldner who shot 48.6% in 1989-90.
Jeff could get
some national honors, too. Prior
to the Princeton game he was second in the nation in three-point
accuracy. He
“slumped” to 3-of-8 tonight, which may drop his ranking, but that
doesn’t change the basic point that Boschee’s shooting this season
has been very special.
And
the Jayhawks need his shooting to be special.
Other than Axtell, who has been streaky but is hitting a
respectable 40% behind the arc, the Jayhawks don’t have any other
players who are a legitimate threat from long range.
Each of the Jayhawks’ other perimeter players has struggled. Gregory has only attempted seven three-pointers and made only
one. Bradford has made
only one of nine. London
has been blanked in six attempts. Not only are those percentages low,
but the low number of attempts by these three wing players allows
defenses to safely bet that they won’t even try a shot behind the
arc. Hinrich has
attempted more three-point shots, but he’s only connected on three
of his 16 attempts. One
of the keys for this season could well be whether one of these players
can become a consistent three-point shooter.
Hinrich is the best bet to fill that role.
Merry
Christmas: Coach Roy Williams was ecstatic with the way the Jayhawks
played tonight meaning the players can go home for the holidays
without the threat of punishing practices hanging over their heads.
That is quite a change from a year ago when the Jayhawks went
into the Christmas break with a very grumpy coach after a depressing
loss to St. Louis in what turned out to be the low-point of the
Jayhawks’ worst season of the decade.
And
while this wasn’t the most scintillating win of the decade, it will
stand as the last one in Allen Fieldhouse this century, which makes it
special in its own way and will serve to keep the game alive as the
answer to a trivia question.
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