Some thoughts…from Lincoln

Gary Bedore, Journal-World KU men’s basketball beat writer

“Brandon Rush obviously took to heart Self’s challenge for him to be more aggressive. He was especially aggressive early in helping KU set the tone for the game. It was a good win. It was a loud crowd the first half, the fans believing the Huskers at 11-2 had a good shot at beating KU. KU hung in there and did a nice job again defensively, especially on Aleks. Don’t be fooled by his 19 points, six were very late.”

Tom Keegan, Journal-World sports editor

“Kansas doesn’t rely on any one way to win. On a night the Jayhawks only forced 12 turnovers and in turn didn’t score its usual bundle of easy baskets in transition, they still won din a rout by playing sound defense and lighting it up from the outside. It’s not as if Nebraska had a bad night. The Cornhuskers just faced a superior team.”

Ryan Greene, KUSports.com editor

“For the second straight year, the Nebraska faithful waited all day to come in and watch their team go head-to-head with a superior foe. For the second straight year, they lost big. For the second straight year, a somewhat-embattled Jayhawk redeemed himself. Last year, it was Julian Wright, opening the night on an offensive tear after an embarrassing blown open court dunk folly against Colorado two days earlier. This year, it was Brandon Rush answering Bill Self’s call for more assertion on the offensive end. Julian stayed solid the rest of the way for the Jayhawks a year ago. Only time will tell if Self’s words are needed again to wake up Brandon’s offense.”

Inside the numbers

19: Brandon Rush was easily the story of this game. The junior guard, who I’m sure by now you heard drew the ire of Bill Self in Tuesday’s postgame press session for laying off a bit on offense, responded right from go. Rush was 5-of-7 from three-point range and scored 19 points. More important, though, was that he was never passive on offense. Despite going 0-for-4 from inside the arc, he consistently penetrated and kicked when getting the ball in his hands, rather than giving it away right away like a hot potato.

14: Mario Chalmers’ solid return from a slight groin tweak was pretty much an afterthought in this one, but he was good on both ends of the floor. Instead of taking too many chances at stealing errant balls, Chalmers helped his teammates lock down Nebraska on the perimeter for the most part, denying open looks and forcing the Huskers to repeatedly take bad shots with the shot clock melting away.

18: Sasha Kaun’s defensive stats (zero defensive boards, one blocked shot) may not show it, but he was integral defensively for KU in stopping Aleks Maric, limiting him to 19 pretty much meaningless points in 26 minutes on the floor (six of those points came in the final two minutes). Kaun also had 10 points off the bench in 18 valuable minutes played.

13: KU was 13-of-16 from the free throw line on the night, as the Jayhawks continue to improve from the stripe – one of Bill Self’s New Year’s resolutions for the team. In two games since the calendar switched over to 2008, KU is 28-of-35 from the stripe.

Just in case you missed it…

Brandon Rush’s aggressiveness is defined by more than his shot chart, and Bill Self made that clear after the game. Rush had four assists, which is well above the norm for him, but it came as the result of him consistently penetrating the lane, rather than being a piece of the swing pattern with the ball around the key.

Hopefully you didn’t miss it…

KU passed its first true road test of the year. Yeah, they’ve played at Georgia Tech, Boston College and Southern Cal, but none of those venues were filled, and none had the atmosphere of a Big 12 game between two longtime rivals. The Jayhawks faced a daunting road crowd for the early portion of the game, but were never fazed, jumping out to an early lead just like they did last year and never trailing.

They said it…

Brandon Rush on staying aggressive from now on: “That’s gonna be the last time he ever says anything to me about being aggressive. It’s the way it is – I’ve got to help the team out by just taking shots, putting myself in position to make plays for teammates.”

Mario Chalmers on the Jayhawks’ defensive performance: “I think our defense was great. We didn’t get a lot of steals, but we played solid D and made them use a lot of clock and made them take tough shots, and I think that was our whole gameplan. And tonight we knew we weren’t gonna steal the ball a lot from them, so we just wanted to play solid D and make them use time.”

Mario Chalmers on whether he believes this is the last time Brandon Rush will be asked to be more aggressive: “No. I don’t believe it. But I hope it is. I don’t want coach Self yelling at us, talking about getting Brandon aggressive and stuff. I hope it’s the last time…Try to keep feeding him the ball early in the game like we did today. He got a lot of open looks and he was knocking them down, so anytime you do that, you’ve got to keep feeding the hot hand.”

Bill Self on Brandon Rush’s play: “He was terrific the first half. Played pretty well the whole game, but only made the one shot in the second half. But he was aggressive. And I thought he looked like the old Brandon, to be real honest with you…He doesn’t take a lot of shots, but at least put himself in position to score, and he did a much better job the first half. He had four assists, which was probably a season-high for him. Anytime Brandon has that many assists, that’s probably a good thing because he doesn’t average but one or two per game.”

Bill Self on Sasha Kaun’s defense on Aleks Maric: “He did get a lot of points late, but Sasha’s really a good post defender, he always has been since he’s been here. He’s longer and a little bit stronger than what people may give him credit for, and he’s hard to score over, and Aleks is probably the first true low-post player we’ve had to guard all year, and we knew Sasha would be important for us to have success.”

Sasha Kaun on successfully defending Maric: “Maybe just because we practice with a lot of good bigs, and we’re used to guarding each other, and guarding Maric is like guarding one of us. I think our guards are doing a very good job of making the other guys catch the ball a little higher so it’s harder for them to throw the ball inside, so he doesn’t get as many touches as he usually does. We’ve got to guard him with not just bigs, but guards as well.”