{"id":10782,"date":"2012-03-08T17:55:19","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T23:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=10782"},"modified":"2012-03-09T08:21:41","modified_gmt":"2012-03-09T14:21:41","slug":"johnson-leads-kansas-past-aggies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2012\/03\/08\/johnson-leads-kansas-past-aggies\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnson Leads Kansas Past Aggies"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Blake Schuster<\/strong><\/p>\n

They are the sort of numbers Kansas fans have come to expect from Tyshawn Taylor \u2014 which made Elijah Johnson posting them all the more sweet.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

26 points on 8-11 shooting, a career high for Johnson in Kansas\u2019 83-66 first round victory over Texas A&M.<\/p>\n

By the time Taylor made his first field goal with four minutes left in the first half Johnson had already scored 13 points \u2014 looking more like Taylor than himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cElijah got us over the hump,\u201d Kansas coach Bill Self said.<\/p>\n

The hump was the first ten minutes of the game, where KU only managed 12 points and trailed the Aggies by five. Coming out of a timeout with 10:39 left in the first half, Johnson hit his first of five threes on the night. From there the Aggies began saying goodbye to their lead \u2014 and the Big 12 \u2014 while Kansas went on a 21-3 run over the next 6:30 to put the Jayhawks up 40-28 at the break.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the second shot I made I told Tyshawn [Taylor] that it felt great,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHe took advantage of it and came to me whenever he could.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the second time when Kansas got in an early dogfight with the Aggies, Johnson put the Jayhawks back on track. On February 22, in College Station, Texas., Johnson led KU in scoring with 21 points while Taylor only put up 12.<\/p>\n

But going into that game Johnson had much less on his mind.<\/p>\n

Last week Johnson\u2019s uncle \u2014 who had lived with him for a few years when Johnson was younger \u2014 passed away and he made the trip back to his hometown of Gary, IN. to attend the memorial for him. After spending a few days with family under unfortunate circumstances, Johnson returned to the normalcy of Lawrence.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get to go home once a year, so whenever I get to go home I feel good about it,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cIt just had to be under these conditions, going through the whole service, and being able to cry with my family, and then realizing I had to get back to business. \u201c<\/p>\n

If there is one coach who can get someone to focus on basketball after tragedy it\u2019s Bill Self. So once Texas A&M began forcing contested shots from behind the arc, and collapsing to the paint \u2014 making it tough for Taylor to get going \u2014 Self got Johnson to step in.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s huge,\u201d Taylor said of Johnson\u2019s outburst. \u201cIt makes us a better team when you have someone that can come out and light somebody up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall the Jayhawks were 10-15 from behind the arc, including two from Thomas Robinson who posted his 23rd <\/sup>double-double of the season with 19 points and 10 rebounds.<\/p>\n

But what gave Johnson the confidence to drop what seemed like endless threes didn\u2019t come from warm-ups, or yesterday\u2019s practice, it came from one little conversation in passing between Self and Johnson right before tip-off.<\/p>\n

As Johnson was walking out of the locker room Self told him he liked how he was shooting in practice yesterday. Johnson didn\u2019t know Self had noticed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said \u2018I know everything\u2019,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cHearing that from your head coach, if you don\u2019t feel special, there\u2019s not many people who can get through to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

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VIDEO COURTESY OF OUR CAMPUS MEDIA PARTNER KUJH-TV<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Blake Schuster They are the sort of numbers Kansas fans have come to expect from Tyshawn Taylor \u2014 which made Elijah Johnson posting them all the more sweet.\u00a0 26 points on 8-11 shooting, a career high for Johnson in Kansas\u2019 83-66 first round victory over Texas A&M. By the time Taylor made his first field goal with four minutes left in the first half Johnson had already scored 13 points \u2014 looking more like Taylor than himself. \u201cElijah got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}