Recap: Detroit at Kansas

December 29, 2006

Kansas 63 - Detroit 43

My Observations

Long stretches of this game were just sickening to watch ... just ask the poor Detroit assistant coach who graced the Allen Fieldhouse court with the contents of his stomach early in the 2nd half.  It couldn't have been motion sickness ... that would have required movement.  This game had no rhythm or flow, and when turnovers happened, they rarely resulted in fastbreak opportunities.  The final margin was probably about 6-8 points more than how most of the game felt.  It didn't feel like KU would lose, but you just sensed that it should have been much, much easier than this.

Four Factor Analysis

• SHOOTING - Game, set, match to Kansas here (54% to 35% for eFG%).  Those are actually pretty solid numbers.  The question is, how did these numbers look when UDM had pulled to within four points early in the 2nd half?  My guess is it was still a significant advantage to KU, just not this much.
• OFFENSIVE REBOUNDING - This was supposed to be something UDM couldn't do, but KU should have been able to do at an average level.  In actuality, neither team made a dent in offensive rebounding (18% for KU and 15% for UDM).  So compared to expectations, advantage to the Titans.
• TURNOVERS - Slight advantage to KU (18% to 21%), but this was supposed to be a huge advantage for KU.  After a flurry of early TO's, the Titans settled down and seemed to play under poise.  The result of good ball control was that UDM ended up taking 50 shots to KU's 48.  It also kept the KU fastbreak in check.
• FREETHROW RATE - Advantage Kansas (23% vs 16%).  Should have been even more if KU could have just hit some freethrows.  Lots of coulda, woulda, shoulda's in this game for KU.

CONCLUSION - Most of the disappointment can be traced to KU's offense, but at least one aspect of defense was missing.  KU shot well overall and limited its TO's, but disappointed on rebounds and converting FT's.  KU's defense did everything as well as expected but didn't force enough turnovers.

Player Performance Analysis

For the second straight game, and the third time in five games, Mario Chalmers led the Jayhawks' efforts on court.  He led the way with scoring 22 points, and although he didn't make a ton of other contributions, he made a few while doing his scoring very efficiently.  Mario really looks like he's back to where he was towards the latter part of last season.

Another solid contributor in KU's backcourt, on a night where the Jayhawk frontcourt really struggled, was freshman Sherron Collins.  His solid shooting was complemented by five assists against only one turnover.  If Collins can build on this performance and start trending upward, it would be a tremendous boost for KU, since Russell Robinson is generally struggling right now on the offensive end.  Collins hasn't been very consistent, which may change once he gets even more minutes.

At points during the game, Brandon Rush put his teammates on his back and carried them.  Some of his moves make you wonder why he's not dominating games more often ... and mind you, he was coming off the flu this game.  For the game, he shot efficiently, got a decent number of rebounds (albeit all defensive), and didn't have a single turnover in 33 minutes.  The team's underperformance, however, drags his rating down a bit more than most given his significant playing time.

Russell Robinson finally had a respectable shooting game (0-1 on 2FG's and 2-3 on 3FG's).  He had fewer AST's than usual (2) and more TO's than usual (3) but countered with 5 rebounds (all defensive), 2 STL, and 1 BLK.  Considering he only played 28 minutes, not a bad game actually.  Given that he's shooting even worse this season than last, we may see some of the "law of averages" catching up with Robinson.  What he can't afford to do is continue making turnovers.  We'll see where things go from here, but his season-cumulative ratings have been slipping, and this game may have pushed Collins slightly ahead of him for the first time (Kansas Dashboard to be updated shortly).

Sasha Kaun continues having fairly decent games.  He was the best frontcourt player this night, as he grabbed three of KU's five offensive rebounds, made both of his freethrows and 2-6 FG's, and blocked four shots in just 23 foul-plagued minutes.  It is more likely that Kaun will play close to his level of last season than to the early part of this season when he was injured.  That would mean that his best games are still ahead of him, and we can count on him to cut down some TO's while upping his eFG%.

Jeremy Case played seven minutes and had nothing to show for it on the boxscore.  It was surprising to see him pass up a couple of open perimeter shots.  Surprisingly, I believe that he will actually have the second highest efficiency rating on the team after this game, but he still hasn't played enough minutes to consider that meaningful.  Take a look at his season stats if you're wondering why.  Don't look just at his shooting.

Darrell Arthur struggled for the second consecutive game, and this time it wasn't against a good team.  It was against a good player though.  Ryvon Covile is an experienced, strong senior with quickness and power.  Arthur wasn't able to get free as much as he'd like, but the big thing was that he missed all three of his freethrows.  He had a block and a steal without fouling, but he shot only 3-8 from the field.  It all netted out to a largely neutral effect on the game.

Darnell Jackson had a quiet night and didn't do much of anything.  He missed his one shot and made only 1-2 freethrows while grabbing a mere two rebounds in 13 minutes.  Not one of his better nights.

Finally, in a disappointing and disturbing performance, Julian Wright is left bringing up the rear this game.  In one stretch, he line-drived one of the ugliest shots I've ever seen from about 16 feet and then chose to follow it up with an ill-advised three-pointer from the top-of-the-key early in the next possession.  Several times, he attempted to dribble behind the back or while spinning.  The few times he had position inside, it seemed he either didn't make a strong move or failed to finish.  He missed 3 of his 4 freethrow attempts, had zero offensive rebounds (5 total), 3 TO's, 1 AST, 2 BLK, and 0 STL, and he shot 2-6 from the field.  It's not enough that the numbers put him dead last, but it's his decision making that felt suspect.  For the season overall, Julian did have the most contributions coming into this game.  So, more than anything, it's probably inconsistency that makes his performance so frustrating.  How can he dominate the defending national championships then turn around and sputter against Detroit Mercy?

For UDM, their top two scorers brought their "A" game into Lawrence.  Covile may not have scored much (7) but he had 9 defensive rebounds, helping to shut down the KU second-chance opportunities.  He did a little of everything else, too, resulting in a team-high rating.  Cotton was the scorer on this night, but he didn't shoot very efficiently (44 eFG%).  The player who really struggled compared to expectations was Goode.  He shot only 1-7 FG's (1-4 on 3FG's) and grabbed three rebounds.  Coming into this game, he had been shooting a sizzling 62 eFG%.

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