Some thoughts…from Allen Fieldhouse

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

“Darnell Jackson had a great game as KU’s inside players dominated. Obviously they accepted the challenge of facing a tall Iowa State team. Iowa State is actually pretty good. KU better be ready for the rematch in Ames. Brackins is a good player as is Johnson. Rush was an assist whiz tonight and Robinson played well.”

Tom Keegan, Journal-World sports editor

“Don’t ask me. Ask the guys who make the lines in Las Vegas. Kansas was a seven-point favorite in Missouri and won the game by six points. The Jayhawks were favored by 23.5 points against Iowa State. Rodrick Stewart’s buzzer-beating inside shot trickled in to give Kansas a 24-point victory. The moral of the story: Don’t gamble. In the end, Vegas always wins.”

Ryan Greene, KUSports.com editor

“I still can’t wait until next Wednesday. But I guess that thought has to be on the shelf at the moment. KU simply proved it can win a slowed down game as well as one of the sped-up variety. Nothing surprises me with this team anymore. Gary’s right in that ISU is pretty good. If they had an above-average point guard, they’re an NCAA Tournament team.”

Inside the numbers

11: Darnell Jackson’s teammates were even reminding him on this night that he was one rebound shy of his first double-double of the season. He pulled it down, then grabbed another, finishing with 21 points and 11 boards, adding yet another memorable night to an already-memorable senior season. And it’s only about halfway done.

16: Darrell Arthur deserves some credit, even though he had just one rebound tonight. The sophomore big man, who in the opening minutes had an air ball from pointblank range, a turnover and a foul, came back after a short stint on the bench and went nuts offensively. Arthur finished with 16 points in just 19 minutes of play. After the game it was revealed he played with a tweaked calf muscle, suffered in Tuesday’s practice.

6: Brandon Rush tied his career high with six assists, including five dimes in the first half. Bill Self talked about how ISU defended the perimeter and chose to take away three-point looks, holding KU to just 10 of them. Rush recognized that, and though he stroked three trifectas of his own, he found other ways to get involved, finishing with five rebounds as well. That said, KU outscored ISU in the paint 42-16.

7: KU was held to just seven fast break points, giving the Jayhawks a grand total of nine now in their last two games. Self said afterwards that teams are beginning to recognize KU’s penchant for scoring in transition and are sending more guys back sooner, thus some inflated rebounding numbers. The Jayhawks again won the battle on the boards, 46-33.

21: Iowa State ain’t bad, not by a long shot. Sophomore Wesley Johnson scored 21 points, and said afterwards in a light manner that he hopes the Jayhawks are still undefeated when they visit Ames on Feb. 27 (They’d be 27-0 at that point if that happened to be the case). ISU lacks solid point guard play, but they have bodies to throw at you. Hilton will be no welcome mat this year.

Just in case you missed it…

KU rebounded from a 28-of-45 free throw performance Saturday at Mizzou by going 14-of-18 Wednesday night. Free throws have been talked about a ton – maybe too much – lately, but they’re always important, especially if KU wants to be considered a truly complete team.

Hopefully you didn’t miss it…

Darnell Jackson’s showing Wednesday night was a prime example of how the senior big man has played with a free mind this year. Things didn’t go well for the Jayhawks right off the bat, and ISU was able to keep it close for about half of the opening stanza. Jackson didn’t get disturbed, simply went to work consistently and didn’t really show a weakness in his final stat line (21 points, 9-14 FG, 3-4 FT, 11 rebounds, two assists, zero turnovers, one blocked shot). His funniest moment came after scoring on a third straight possession at one point with a jumper atop the key. He held his three fingers up on each hand over his head, then looked at the ref who called it a two and shrugged his shoulders. The man’s simply in a zone right now.

They said it…

Darnell Jackson on the joyous rid that’s been his senior season so far: “It hasn’t sunk in at all. I always tell my mom, I always say ‘Can you believe it?’ And she’ll be like ‘No, I can’t believe it.’ Because it’s just happening out of the blue. I don’t know why it’s happening. Because you never know. I’m just out there, just out there in the routine…I’m free, I don’t feel like anything’s holding me down. My family’s doing great, I’m on track to graduate in May, and just everything is coming true. I’m just trying to stay focused and give everything I have.”

Darnell Jackson on if there’s any added pressure having an undefeated record: “No pressure at all. We don’t even talk about our record in the locker room.”

Darnell Jackson on whether he knew how close he was to a double-double with one rebound to go in the second half: “I knew. A couple of the guys over there kept yelling to me ‘You need one more! One more!’ I wanted to make sure that if I got a chance to get the rebound, I was gonna go up and get it.”

Darrell Arthur on knowing Darnell Jackson would have a special year before it even started: “This summer, I knew he was going to be real special for us. He was doing a lot of working out. Every day, just working out, working out real hard. When I was hurt, I was just watching him work out and I knew he was going to have a big impact for us this year…He just gets the team motivated everyday, makes sure we focus for practice, makes sure we focus for games, and we just follow him out there. We just follow our senior leader.”

Darrell Arthur on his offensive showing: “I was just trying to get more aggressive offensively, I started out real bad with a turnover and an air ball. I just tried to come out stronger than that. Coach Manning just worked me through some things, through some moves during the game and just told me what to do out there. I think that helped me a lot.”

Darrell Arthur on his South Oak Cliff High team from his senior season being stripped of its state title Wednesday due to the use of an ineligible player: “I am mad about it, but I’d have to talk to my coaches and things about it, because I don’t even know what’s going on with that.”

Bill Self on Darnell Jackson’s performance: “He was great. He’s been like that most every game. You’re not gonna always get 20 in a game, but he’s been a 14 (point) and 8 (rebound) guy probably the last month, and tonight offensively he was just tremendous.”

Bill Self on finding something wrong with Wednesday’s performance: “I think our energy level was average at best. That wasn’t the same team defensively that was jacked up to play OU the other day. Now we were pretty efficient defensively, but we didn’t have that same energy level that we had then. So I would say that we could certainly improve in that area. And our guys know it. I mean, if you ask ’em on a scale of 1-to-10 where our energy level was, with 10 being like it was against OU, it was a 6 or a 7, so we’ve got to do better there. But we were still pretty efficient.”

Bill Self on Brandon Rush’s performance: “I thought Brandon played a good floor game…We’ve got two really efficient guards in Brandon and Mario, and they combined for 13 shots. But the way that they played us, I think that we just took what they gave us.”

Bill Self on Darnell Jackson’s free mind this year: “I got a kick out of him yesterday in practice, because I went nuts on our guys for a few minutes because I hadn’t gone nuts on them in a long time, and he just looked at me and started smiling like he knew exactly what I was doing. He’s just kinda enjoying everything. I can’t get under his skin right now even if I tried, and I’ve tried several times. And I think that’s a good thing. It needs to be water off your back whenever a coach does that, and you can just see the development, where two years ago he’d be saying’ That man’s crazy.’ Now he’s just like ‘Come on, guys, can’t you figure it out?'”