Kansas City, Mo. ? For the first time this season, Sasha Kaun looked completely relaxed in a game setting on the basketball court.

Well, with the exception of about three seconds, that is.

In the first half of Kansas University’s 68-58 slugfest with Toledo at Kemper Arena, Kaun found himself on the floor underneath the Toledo hoop in a mess of big men. To end the sequence, KU freshman Darrell Arthur thundered home a two-handed slam, throttling and jerking the rim a little longer than usual, flirting with a technical-foul whistle.

But Arthur had no choice, as he had to avoid coming down on his teammate’s recovering right knee.

“When I fell down, I tried to get up, but I saw him coming through, so I just stayed down on the ground so he could dunk it,” Kaun said with a laugh and a head tilt after the game. “Then I tried to get out of his way pretty quick.”

Other than that jumble, Kaun was smooth, going 5-for-5 from the floor en route to 10 points and four blocked shots in 22 minutes played – all of which were season highs.

“A couple of weeks of practice,” KU coach Bill Self said after the game was the difference between where Kaun was and where he is heading into the team’s 10-day layover between contests. “Sasha, behind Brandon (Rush), was probably the best player in the game for us.”

This performance came on the heels of Kaun looking offensively clumsy in the Jayhawks’ past few outings. While knee soreness is going away, Kaun still is working out the kinks in his head, and he said that played a major role in Saturday’s showing.

“I think it’s kind of more of a mental thing, just getting my mind off of it, just playing and letting it go,” said Kaun, playing in his seventh game since missing the season’s first five with a partially torn patellar tendon in his right knee. “I think subconsciously, if you get hurt, that’s one of those things you have to work on by yourself and getting rid of it. I think it’s just a matter of me playing where I should be and filling my role with the team and just going from there.”

Kaun’s teammates took notice, too, to his seemingly raised comfort level on the floor, and in turn were able to take extra advantage of KU’s major height advantage Saturday in a rather aggressive nature. The Jayhawks swatted 15 shots, breaking a school record that stood since 1996.

It was more an example of Kaun and the KU bigs seizing the opportunity Toledo presented, with none of the Rockets’ key contributors standing taller than 6-foot-6.

“Sasha’s a big body, a big defensive presence down there, biggest player we’ve got, (he) can block a lot of shots and wallop on a lot of other things,” Arthur said. “Players can’t really score over him, and a lot of players are afraid of him, I think.”