{"id":71678,"date":"2019-11-01T15:30:02","date_gmt":"2019-11-01T20:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=71678"},"modified":"2019-11-01T15:30:37","modified_gmt":"2019-11-01T20:30:37","slug":"kansas-basketball-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2019\/11\/01\/kansas-basketball-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Kansas Basketball Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

(This article was originally submitted Oct. 30)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are a KU fan it has been a pretty solid week for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether that was celebrating the shocking win\nKU football had over Texas Tech on Saturday after nearly beating Texas or KU\nbasketball finally making its return back to the central stage in Lawrence with\na 86-56 win over the Fort Hays State Tigers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a lot to like. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Kansas, coming into this season there was\na lot of potential that people were eager to see after a worse than expected\nseason took away their hopes of a 15th straight Big 12 regular season title.\nHaving three seniors in Isaiah Moss, Udoka Azuibuke, and Mitch Lightfoot\n(Lightfoot has been rumored that he may stay around for one more year) the hype\nis real because there is nothing more valuable than senior leadership putting\nthe young guys in the best position possible to succeed. That is something they\ndidn\u2019t have much of last year with one senior in LaGerald Vick leaving early\nbecause of personal reasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I just mentioned, much as been said about\nMitch Lightfoot redshirting this season in a year that Kansas is very much\nstacked in the frontcourt with Azubuike, Lightfoot, Silvio De Sousa, David\nMcormack, Tristan Enaruna, and possibly Jalen Wilson all vying for minutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Self said at a press conference on Thursday,\n\u201cAs of right now, we\u2019re thinkin the best option is to redshirt him\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the actual game last Thursday, it\ndidn\u2019t come as easy quickly for Kansas as some people would have expected to\nsee. Fort Hays State came out with a gut punch showing Kansas that they were\ngoing to give them a game of it as with 14:16 left in the first half they had a\n12-7 lead. Kansas quickly turned that around courtesy of a 12-2 run going 19-14\nwith 11:08 left in the first half courtesy of a basket and two free throws from\nLightfoot, two threes from Marcus Garrett and one from incoming freshman\nChristian Braun. Kansas ended up getting their footing late leading by as many\nas 15 before going into the halftime break up 11 36-25.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like they did in the first half, the Tigers\ncame out firing on all cylinders on a 9-0 to cut the deficit to just two 36-34\nwith 18:07 left. Then the Jayhawks pushed back with 15-2 spurt of their own\nleading 51-36 with 13:34 courtesy of an Enaruna layup. The Jayhawks never\nlooked back finishing the tigers on 34-20 run to beat them 86-56 in their first\nexhibition win of the season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were a lot of things to digest and take\naway from this game for the Jayhawks, but perhaps the most encouraging was the\nplay of Marcus Garrett. Whenever it seemed like Fort Hays State wanted to\ndictate the game, Garrett answered right back with a three of his own finishing\n4-7 from the three point line and 5-10 overall for a total of 15 points being\nthe second leading scorer on the team to Ochai Abaji\u2019s 21. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devon Dotson and Isaiah Moss missed Thursday\u2019s\ngame both with leg injuries (Dotson with his ankle and Moss with his hamstring)\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUnless something happens tomorrow,\u201d Self\nsaid. \u201cHe\u2019s in (for Thursday vs. Pitt St.). He practiced full speed on Saturday\nand Sunday and Monday.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another huge moment on Thursday\u2019s not just for\nKansas basketball, but the entire fanbase was the long awaited return of Junior\nSilvio De Sousa. De Sousa was declared ineligible by the NCAA last season after\nhis guardian was given $2,500 plus $25,000 by Nike from TJ Gassnola. He\nfinished last nights with game 11 points and 7 boards, but it left people\nwondering afterwards how this affects Azuibuke, who was nominated Preseason Big\n12 Player Of The Year after he was kept relatively quiet not getting his first\npoints until 5:57 left in the second half to make it 71-46 ending up finishing\nwith 5 points. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Self stated tonight at his press conference\nthat sophomore David McCormack that he would start the game to see how he is\nused on the floor with Azuibuke. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On October 31st, Halloween night the Jayhawks will finish up exhibition versus the Gorillas of Pittsburgh State who finished 17-13 (9-10 in the MIAA) last season, before they head to Madison Square Garden on November 7th to start the regular season playing the Duke Blue Devils in the Champions Classic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Featured image courtesy of Chance Parker \/ UDK<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This article was originally submitted Oct. 30) If you are a KU fan it has been a pretty solid week for you. Whether that was celebrating the shocking win KU football had over Texas Tech on Saturday after nearly beating Texas or KU basketball finally making its return back to the central stage in Lawrence with a 86-56 win over the Fort Hays State Tigers. There is a lot to like. For Kansas, coming into this season there was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20147,"featured_media":71679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3262,610],"tags":[127,130],"class_list":["post-71678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-sports-articles","tag-basketball","tag-kjhk-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/5db25488122ab.image_.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71678","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\/20147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}