Kansas 83 - Dartmouth 32

My Observations

The story of the game was KU's smothering defense, active hands, and dominating offensive rebounding.  It's a good thing they did those things so well because they only managed a 51.5 eFG% against lowly Dartmouth's underwhelming defense.  That's a good percentage against most teams, but this game should have resulted in very high quality shots.  KU's offensive efficiency came mostly because of all the second chances.  Overall, it's understandable there would be a letdown from Friday's big win, but the one constant this team must carry forward with it throughout this season is defense.  For that reason, this game was another step in the right direction.

Player Performance Analysis

Not a lot to examine here.  Just a few notes.  Darnell Jackson really put in a solid night's work.  He owned the offensive glass with 7 O-Reb and shot nearly perfectly (4-5 FG, 5-5 FT).  Arthur and Wright continued their high-performing ways.  The player I was most impressed by was Russell Robinson.  Extremely quiet on the scoring front, RR poured in 7 AST with only 1 TO (miscommunicated alley-oop).  Surprisingly good performances turned in by Rodrick Stewart and Brady Morningstar!  Stewart finally contributed on the offensive end, and Morningstar got to play .... period.  Both had nice games.  Sherron Collins didn't look completely comfortable out there, but he hit a few shots and did some nice things.  Brandon Rush shot very poorly from the perimeter and freethrow line, but he didn't really make any mistakes.  Besides, missed shots weren't that big a deal in this game because KU got a ton of offensive rebounds.  In one of his longer stints of the season, Jeremy Case didn't get much accomplished.  Finally, Chalmers and Kaun bring up the rear after somewhat subpar performances.  Chalmers had 4 TO's and only 1 STL, while Kaun missed nearly everything he threw up, including another dunk attempt.

On Dartmouth's side, Graeber and Schickel rated high mostly because they hardly played, while Mosley was the leading scorer and one of only two positive contributors when adjusting for opponent quality.  Very tough game for Barnett, Mathis and Meyer.