The round of 32 matchup many people began anticipating when the brackets were \u00a0announced will come true on Sunday inside the Century Link Center in Omaha.<\/p>\n
The Wichita\u00a0State Shockers (29-4, 17-1 Missouri Valley) and the Kansas Jayhawks (27-8, 13-5 Big 12) each\u00a0finished off their respective opponents in their first games of the NCAA Tournament to set up\u00a0the showdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big game for us. The state of Kansas has been kind of\u2026anticipating this game for\u00a0a while now. We just [have to] get our minds right and focus on the game and what we [have to]\u00a0do to get the win,\u201d said Kansas\u2019 freshman guard Devont\u00e9 Graham.<\/p>\n
The Jayhawks will see a small lineup against the Shockers, who start four guards and one\u00a0forward. Wichita State boasts two main scoring threats in junior guards Fred VanVleet and Ron\u00a0Baker. The two guards combine for 28-points-per-game.\u00a0VanVleet was the star of Wichita State\u2019s opening win with 27 points. Baker finished with 15.<\/p>\n
The Jayhawks spread their scoring around in their first game of the NCAAs. Sophomore\u00a0guard Frank Mason III led the way with 17 points, while five other players put in at least eight.<\/p>\n
Kansas junior big man Perry Ellis will be the center of attention for multiple reasons\u00a0against Wichita State. Ellis is from Wichita and the Shockers were a finalist when it came time\u00a0for Ellis to decide where he was attending college.<\/p>\n
Ellis\u2019 knee has also been a topic of conversation since he came back from injury in the\u00a0Big 12 Tournament after more than two games off.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy leg feels good,\u201d Ellis said when asked about his recovery. \u201cI would say\u2026it\u2019s just a\u00a0mental thing. Each day I\u2019m getting better and better. Practice today went well. The key thing is\u00a0just getting out there and just being aggressive and attacking and I was doing that today\u2026That\u2019s\u00a0just going to be the key going forward, but the knee feels great.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kansas head coach Bill Self said his team forgot about their opening win about 30\u00a0minutes after it ended, when they began focusing on what lies ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like the fact that we played the first game yesterday\u2026I liked the fact that we played\u00a0early so we basically had two days to prep for this (game) from a mental standpoint as opposed\u00a0to one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He offered plenty of compliments for the Shockers\u2019 program in his press conference on\u00a0Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a real sound team, and it\u2019s hard\u2026taking something away from sound teams and\u00a0making them uncomfortable and making them play without rhythm,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Guards like Graham will be a key factor if they want to play the sound defense and\u00a0efficient offense it takes to beat a team like the Shockers.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s had some good games for us,\u201d Self said of his freshman. \u201cHe\u2019s a good player and\u00a0probably hasn\u2019t scored the ball consistently like we think he can, but he shot the ball well\u00a0yesterday and I think we\u2019re a better team in sections of the game when we have our two little ball\u00a0handlers (Mason and Graham) in there together.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tip off will be Sunday at 4:15 p.m. Pregame will begin on KJHK at 3:45 p.m.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
— Adam Drovetta<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The round of 32 matchup many people began anticipating when the brackets were \u00a0announced will come true on Sunday inside the Century Link Center in Omaha. The Wichita\u00a0State Shockers (29-4, 17-1 Missouri Valley) and the Kansas Jayhawks (27-8, 13-5 Big 12) each\u00a0finished off their respective opponents in their first games of the NCAA Tournament to set up\u00a0the showdown. \u201cIt\u2019s a big game for us. The state of Kansas has been kind of\u2026anticipating this game for\u00a0a while now. We just [have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4332,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2266,2788,2441,267,657,264,1512],"class_list":["post-33519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-adam-drovetta","tag-alex-blau","tag-dylan-sherwood","tag-kansas-jayhawks","tag-march-madness","tag-ncaa","tag-wichita-state"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33519","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\/4332"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}