Sade Morris (20) drives the lane against San Jose State's Aumornai Edinburgh (5). Morris scored 20 points during the game.

No need to tell Kelly Kohn what a gym rat is, not after last summer.

“I’ve never spent so much time in a gym before,” said Kohn, Kansas University’s 5-foot-9 junior guard. “I did a lot of repetitions.”

All that work on her shot appears to have paid off.

Kohn was four-for-five from three-point range and scored 15 points as the Jayhawks smacked sad-sack San Jose State, 93-49, on Thursday night in Allen Fieldhouse.

“Her form has changed,” KU coach Bonnie Henrickson said of Kohn, “and it takes a lot of work to change that.”

Anyone who saw Kohn shoot from long range as a freshman two years ago remembers too many air balls and too many rocks.

“She didn’t bring the ball back. She pushed it,” Henrickson said. “We told her she pushed it too much. It’s taken time, but you could tell she’d worked on it.”

Kohn worked on changing her shot last year, but a serious ankle injury disrupted her entire game, and her minutes were cut in half.

“It’s always tough to switch something you’re accustomed to doing,” Kohn said. “And it was tough to find rhythm coming off the bench.”

Every chance she had last spring Kohn worked on fine-tuning her shot, then she went home last summer to Adrian, Mich., and really turned into a gym rat.

“We live just a block from Adrian College,” Kohn said, “so I’d go over there all the time. Sometimes my mom rebounded for me, sometimes my dad.”

Now, if she can keep shooting the way she did Thursday night, Kohn might have a chance to regain a starting job. Kohn started all 31 games of her freshman year, but only four last year and none so far this year.

“Defensively, she was much better,” Henrickson said, “and that will be important for her, too.”

How much of a litmus test the Spartans were, however, is debatable. San Jose State is now 4-33 this season and last under Pam DeCosta, a former KU assistant coach under Marian Washington.

“It was a weird feeling to sit on the visitors bench,” DeCosta said.

It was also a bad feeling because the Spartans shot a dismal 28 percent, committed 23 turnovers and were outrebounded 48-28.

“It was an eye-opening experience,” DeCosta said. “Kansas is a lot more athletic and a lot more physical than we are. We don’t see that in our conference.”

No doubt the score would have been worse if Henrickson had stuck with her starters. As it was, no KU player logged more than 26 points and two or three reserve players recorded career highs.

Rebecca Feickert, for example, counted eight points — only four fewer than she scored in the last two seasons combined. And senior Katie Smith’s four points were three more than she scored in the last three seasons combined.

“I’m just happy for those kids,” Henrickson said about her bench warmers. “They made the most of their minutes.”

Kansas won handily despite committing the number of turnovers as the Spartans. Most of those occurred early in the first half.

“We had no rhythm on offense at all in the first 10 minutes,” Henrickson said. “We were just sloppy. We looked like the Bad News Bears for awhile.”

Now 5-0, the Jayhawks will receive their toughest test so far when they travel Sunday to Milwaukee, Wis., to meet 6-2 Marquette.

— Sports writer Chuck Woodling can be reached at 832-6348.