photo by: Mike Yoder

Kansas center Udoka Azubuike (35) rejects on of his 3 blocked shots against UNC Asheville forward Alec Wnuk (2) in the Jayhawks 95-57 win against UNC Asheville Friday night, Nov. 25, in Allen Fieldhouse.

photo by: Mike Yoder

Kansas center Udoka Azubuike (35) rejects on of his 3 blocked shots against UNC Asheville forward Alec Wnuk (2) in the Jayhawks 95-57 win against UNC Asheville Friday night, Nov. 25, in Allen Fieldhouse.

The coaches and players charged with fixing the 13-1, third-ranked Kansas basketball team’s defensive woes can’t afford to look at it this way, but the truth is that losing 7-foot freshman center Udoka Azubuike counts as a huge part of the problem.

He was team’s lone traditional shot-blocker and led the team with 1.6 blocks per game in 12.9 minutes, an average of 5.6 per 40 minutes played. Among starters, Josh Jackson leads the team with 2.0 blocks per 40 minutes.

It’s reasonable to expect that by the middle of conference season, Azubuike would have increased his playing time to close to 20 minutes per game. Again, no point in thinking about what might have been, but it does help illustrate how difficult it will be for Kansas to play its typically tough defense.

KU has played three games without Azubuike, small sample, and a distorted one because it doesn’t take into account the quality of the opposition. Still, even with the freshman playing such limited minutes, his absence has been noticeable in terms of opponents attacking the basket more freely.

In 11 games with Azubuike in the lineup, opponents shot 2-pointers with a .406 accuracy rate. In the three games since he was lost for the season with a wrist injury, foes have a .491 2-point shooting percentage.

A look at 2-point shooting percentages for Kansas opponents during a five-year stretch reveals the impact of a shot-blocker. Cole Aldrich started at center for KU during the 2008-09 and ’09-10 seasons. Jeff Withey started during the 2011-12 and ’12-’13 seasons.

The Jayhawks didn’t start a true center in 2010-11 and forward Markieff Morris led the team with 1.1 blocks per game.

The 2-point percentages for KU opponents during that span: .406, .403, .451, .395, .392. Aldrich averaged 2.7 and 3.5 blocks per game, Withey 3.6 and 3.9.

There exceptions to every rule. Bill Self’s worst defensive team before the current one, 2013-14, had a shot-blocker in Joel Embiid (2.6 blocks per game), but he was raw and didn’t know how to attempt blocked shots without taking himself out of plays. Plus, that team started three freshmen. The veterans, Perry Ellis and Naadir Tharpe, weren’t noted for their defense, although Ellis developed into a good defender by his senior season.

Darrell Arthur, not a traditional shot-blocker, led the team in blocked shots in both of his seasons and KU played excellent defense both years. Those teams had enough front-court depth that they could afford to maul shooters in the paint and make them earn the points at the free-throw line. Not so with this team. Plus, Arthur and Brandon Rush could switch onto point guards, thanks to their quick feet, and Russell Robinson and Mario Chalmers were defending on the perimeter, employing different and equally effective styles.

Self will figure out a way to make Kansas play better help defense than it has thus far, but no matter what he tries, even if it’s mixing in a little zone defense here and there later in the season, this team does not have the personnel and front-court depth to avoid being a below-average defensive team when compared to typical Self teams.

Photogenic moment

I always enjoy trips to Morgantown because I know I’ll see on press row Bob Hertzel, sarcastic sportswriter who at various stages of his career has covered The Big Red Machine of Johnny Bench, Pete Rose, Tony Perez and Joe Morgan, the Pittsburgh Pirates of barry Bonds and Jim Leyland, Derek Jeter’s Yankees and in recent years the Mountaineers of Bob Huggins and Dana Holgorsen.

Hertzel is always quick with shots on Facebook. The other day when I posted a selfie doing what I do best, blowing a gigantic, face-hiding bubble,
Hertzel quickly weighed in: “Not near as expensive as cosmetic surgery and works just as well.”

That reminded me of a night about 30 years ago. Hertzel and I bellied up to my hotel bar in Pittsburgh, which is to say we came within a few feet of it, when we noticed a (married) man suddenly drop to the dance floor in mid-twist. A few minutes later, the man was wheeled past us on a stretcher, his face purple.

“Do you think he’s dead?” I asked Hertzel.

“He’s dead,” the stranger to my left said, crashing our conversation in condescending fashion.

“What makes you so sure about that?” I asked.

Stranger: “I’m a mortician. I know a dead body when I see one.”

Without blinking, Hertzel, silenced the smug undertaker with: “Oh yeah, did you slip him your card?”

The digger turned dead silent.