Will KU work out the kinks before the Big 12 season starts?
For the 3rd year in a row, Kansas will host an Ivy League opponent for their final game before conference play begins on December 31. The Jayhawks are looking to continue to build momentum following their win over North Carolina State last Saturday. While the Brown Bears aren’t a great team, they have rebounded from a 1-3 start and come to Lawrence with a 7-3 record riding a 6 game winning streak.
There were moments last Saturday that reminded us of the team we saw earlier in the year when they were ranked #1 in the nation. Guard Zeke Mayo had a great game going 9-14 from the floor, including 5-9 from the 3 pt line while also shooting 5 of KU’s 7 free throws. Hunter Dickinson was solid, scoring 21 points even being limited with foul trouble. However, there were also moments that reminded us of the issues that popped up against Creighton and Missouri (and last year). The Wolfpack shot almost 3 times as many free throws as KU on Saturday and turned the ball over less. AJ Storr wasn’t able to make a difference in 17 minutes of play, finishing the game with just 2 points and only taking 3 shots total. Hopefully this game serves as the right opportunity for him to use his athleticism and integrate his skills into the offense.
3 Things to Watch
- An area that was greatly improved for the KU offense against NC State was the inside-out game through Hunter Dickinson and KJ Adams. Dickinson finished the game with 7 assists utilizing his size and court awareness to find open looks for guards on the perimeter and on cuts. If the team can continue to work through Dickinson with Adams on the court, the offense works much better. Brown doesn’t have the size to cause problems for Dickinson, so we should see more of this on Saturday.
- Can AJ Storr get going? As mentioned above, he didn’t add a lot on offense or defensively against NC State. A huge part of the hopes this year with his addition was adding a dynamic player that can get to the rim and make the occasional 3 yet we haven’t really seen that out of him yet outside of the UNC game. While single game offensive ratings aren’t predictive of much, a player having an O-rating of 53.3 certainly shows the player did not have a good game to state the obvious.
- While KU beat Harvard by 14 and Yale by 15 in the last two years, both games were more of a struggle than they should have been. Against Harvard in the 2023 season, the game was tied going into the last TV timeout of the first half and Harvard had it within 5 points with 6 minutes left in the game. Yale put up a similar fight, actually leading KU with 13 minutes left before KU went on a run to put them away after the 8 minute timeout. It’s tough to get up for an inferior opponent with the students on break but if there’s a team that could really use a dominant game, the Jayhawks fit the bill.
Prediction: KU wins but not by the 21 point margin forecasted by Torvik, we’ll go 73-61.