Ames, Iowa ? Basketball is not without its mysteries. For example, there was the bizarre 1978 disappearance of John Brisker, the former ABA superstar who finished his career with the Seattle SuperSonics of the NBA.

Brisker reportedly went to Uganda, either as a guest invited by basketball enthusiast Idi Amin Dada or to start an import-export business or to become a mercenary fighting for Amin. From there, the story grows even hazier. Brisker, declared legally dead in 1985, rumor has it either died in combat or did something to upset the mad dictator with a penchant for cannibalism and was eaten by him. One wild theory even suggested that Brisker died at the Jonestown Massacre.

At this point, it’s not likely the mystery of John Brisker ever will be solved.

As for the question of how it is that a player so tall and quick as Darrell Arthur could go two games in a row without scoring double figures for Kansas University, well, that doesn’t even come close to qualifying as one of basketball’s mind-bending mysteries. Quite the opposite.

When Arthur plays a lot, he scores a lot. When he fouls a lot, he sits a lot. There you have it. Not exactly as mysterious as trigonometry.

Arthur played 31 minutes, scored 18 points and had 10 rebounds Wednesday night in an uninspiring 75-64 victory against Iowa State in Hilton Coliseum.

Other than a stronger-than-usual rebounding night, it was an average performance at best for Arthur. It’s just that his increased minutes made it seem above-average. He made nine of 18 shots from the field. He hits 53 percent of his shots on the season. He didn’t get to the free-throw line at all.

His decision-making was probably slightly above average, considering he came into the night with 17 assists in 27 games and had two in the first half, including one ball he wisely sent back out to the perimeter for Mario Chalmers to turn into three points.

Staying on the floor was Arthur’s greatest achievement. In his only three games (ISU, Arizona, Baylor) with at least 30 minutes, Arthur has averaged 20.3 points per game. It’s not that KU doesn’t have a go-to scorer, it’s just that passing it to him half the time goes down in the books as a turnover because the rules dictate that when a player sitting on the bench catches the ball, he can’t do anything with it but hand it to the referee.

Nothing sets a better climate for open three-point shots than the sort of relentless transition game KU executed in Wednesday’s second half. Few foes have big men who can keep up with KU’s giants, so the opposing guards have to go all the way down to protect the goal, and the perimeter is left unguarded. The stronger the opponent, the better the job it will do at retreating, which means Kansas will need to get some threes in its half-court offense. The more teams have to double down on big men, the way Iowa State did, the more clean the three-point shots looks for KU’s guards. Again, it’s no mystery the Jayhawks hit seven of 11 three-pointers, as open as the shooters were most of the time.

For much of the night, Arthur guarded 6-foot-7 Wesley Johnson, a three-point shooter who doesn’t draw many fouls. Arthur committed four fouls, but spread them out enough that he didn’t have to sit out long stretches. If Kansas is going to get anywhere close to reaching its goal, this must become the rule, not the exception.