Des Moines, Iowa \u2014 Going into the\u00a0last NCAA tournament of his college career, Kansas senior forward\u00a0Perry Ellis is determined to get things right. Heading into Kansas\u2019 second round matchup with UConn Ellis is only eight points away from passing Kirk Hinrich and moving up to tenth in all-time scoring at Kansas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a drive in my game,\u201d Ellis said of his senior year. \u201cJust knowing this is my last go-round, I\u2019m willing to do whatever it takes to try to win and that\u2019s kind of my mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n
During his time at Kansas, Perry Ellis has advanced as far as the sweet sixteen in his freshman year in 2013. However, recently, the team has struggled in the tournament. Kansas lost at this stage in the tournament in both of the last two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that a lot of us experienced, that feeling after the loss,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cIt\u2019s something that we don\u2019t want to happen again so I would say there is a lot of motivation for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
After his team\u2019s 105-79 win over Austin Peay, Ellis spoke about his team\u2019s poor defensive play. Kansas will have to turn in a better performance Saturday against UConn. With a win over Colorado on Thursday, Connecticut goes into the matchup with some momentum through a slight comeback win over Colorado that highlighted Connecticut\u2019s ability to get out in front of teams in transition.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust knowing this is my last go-round, I\u2019m willing to do whatever it takes to try to win and that\u2019s kind of my mindset.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As a quiet leader of the Jayhawks, Ellis has brought along some young players as well. In Kansas\u2019s win Thursday, 18-year-old sophomore guard Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk set a career high in scoring with 23 points. Another surprise throughout\u00a0the whole season has been Devonte\u2019 Graham. Graham has averaged\u00a011.4 points and 3.9 assists this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the key to the team,\u201d Graham said of Ellis. \u201cYou know, sometimes we forget about him. We always have to play through [Perry] on any given day.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Kansas coach Bill Self\u2019s pregame press conference, Self said Ellis\u2019 consistency has been very important to the team but can, at times, make for fundamental, less flashy basketball.<\/p>\n
You can hear KJHK\u2019s broadcast of Kansas and UConn on 90.7 FM live from Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa. Dylan Sherwood and Sam Davis will bring you the game along with pregame coverage beginning\u00a0at 6 p.m. Saturday evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Des Moines, Iowa \u2014 Going into the\u00a0last NCAA tournament of his college career, Kansas senior forward\u00a0Perry Ellis is determined to get things right. Heading into Kansas\u2019 second round matchup with UConn Ellis is only eight points away from passing Kirk Hinrich and moving up to tenth in all-time scoring at Kansas. \u201cIt\u2019s a drive in my game,\u201d Ellis said of his senior year. \u201cJust knowing this is my last go-round, I\u2019m willing to do whatever it takes to try to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6423,"featured_media":43521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3262,610],"tags":[4078,127,4642,3823,3664,4665,4662,4594,4668,3816,4663,4502,3650,87,123,2853,2852,4666,706,4593,2513,3570,2550,4079,4503,4077,4664,4667],"class_list":["post-43510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-sports-articles","tag-4078","tag-basketball","tag-bill","tag-center","tag-college","tag-des","tag-devonte","tag-ellis","tag-fargo","tag-game","tag-graham","tag-hoops","tag-iowa","tag-kansas","tag-ku","tag-madness","tag-march","tag-moines","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-perry","tag-preview","tag-rolstad","tag-self","tag-sixteen","tag-skylar","tag-sweet","tag-uconn","tag-wells"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/IMG_3131.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43510","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\/6423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}