Thursday night’s 94-44 obliteration of Central Arkansas certainly was fun for the Kansas basketball team and its fans. And there’s more good news: A look at the numbers reveals KU did more than unleash impressive dunks.

The Jayhawks flat-out dominated the Bears, perhaps moreso than the 50-point final margin might indicate.

• KU scored 1.45 points per possession, good for sixth best by any team this season (out of approximately 400 games played).

• Central Arkansas scored 0.68 points per possession, one of the 50 worst performances of the young season.

The Jayhawks outscored the Bears by 0.77 points per possession Thursday. Just two days earlier, KU and Memphis each struggled to score more than 0.80 points per possession in a defense-dominated affair.

The most obvious reason for the lopsided numbers is the teams’ diametrically opposed shooting percentages. The Bears made 25.5 percent of their shots while the Jayhawks made 56.9 percent of theirs. Just two of the 10 KU players with four or more field goal attempts shot worse than 50 percent (sophomore guard Tyshawn Taylor, freshman forward Thomas Robinson). On the flip side, just one Central Arkansas player made better than 50 percent of his shots (sophomore forward Chris Henson).

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KU’s freshman guard Elijah Johnson tries to finish around a defender

Central Arkansas, a program still one year away from full NCAA Division I membership, was clearly overwhelmed from the opening tip. The Bears didn’t eclipse the 10 point mark (as a team) until the 1:32 remained in the first half. That opening half included a 10-minute scoreless stretch by Central Arkansas that saw KU put together a 23-0 run. After that point, the question at hand shifted from “Will Central Arkansas pull off the upset?” to “Will Central Arkansas need to destroy this game tape in order to eventually achieve Division I status?”

It was entertaining, if a bit sadistic.

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What went right for Kansas

• The Morris twins

Sophomore forwards Marcus and Markieff Morris put on display the vast improvements they made during the offseason. The brothers shot a combined 8-for-9 and grabbed four rebounds each. On the stat sheet and on the court, the brothers have improved across the board. Thanks to some strenuous summer workouts with assistant athletics director Andrea Hudy, Markieff’s rebounding numbers have skyrocketed: He’s gone from grabbing 30 percent of the team’s rebounds during his playing time last season to pulling down an astounding 45 percent this season. Again, thanks to Hudy and hard work, Marcus looks much more explosive. He showed off his lateral movement by hanging with guards on the defensive end Thursday, and looked fliud driving toward the hoop on offense.

• Spreading the wealth

What coach Bill Self wants, he gets. It would be hard to share the ball more evenly than the Jayhawks did Thursday. No Jayhawk starter shot on more than 23 percent of the team’s possessions, and only freshman guard C.J. Henry (eight points in nine minutes) used 30 percent or more of KU’s possessions. Four KU players scored in double figures, and none of those players took more than eight shots. KU was the picture of unselfishness and efficiency.

• Forcing/avoiding turnovers

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KU’s freshman guard Xavier Henry applies defensive pressure

After suffering through a painfully turnover-filled game against Memphis earlier in the week, KU only lost the ball on 10.8 percent of its possessions against Central Arkansas, about half the national average. Thursday’s showing was KU’s most careful since the team’s 7.4 percent turnover rate in a March 20 victory against North Dakota State in the opening round of last season’s NCAA Tournament. On defense, KU was relentless, hounding the Bears into a 29.2 percent turnover rate, the worst posted by a KU opponent since a Jan. 19 blowout of Texas A&M in which the Aggies scored 53 points. Jayhawks with multiple steals Thursday included Marcus Morris (three), senior guard Sherron Collins (three) and freshman guard Elijah Johnson (two). Robinson and senior center Cole Aldrich each blocked three shots.

What went wrong for Kansas

• Aldrich underused?

In a 50-point victory, to complain is to nitpick. And this most certainly constitutes nitpicking. Aldrich, KU’s most efficient offensive weapon for the past season-plus, took just seven shots against Central Arkansas. The 6-foot-11 junior enjoyed a substantial height advantage against the Bears’ post players, but he didn’t seem to catch the ball near the basket very often. I’m fairly sure KU could have involved Aldrich in the offense if need be, but shooting (and making) 3s and turning turnovers into easy points seemed to work just fine for the Jayhawks. Aldrich finished with seven points and five rebounds in his least active game since a five-shot, eight-point, three-rebound effort in a March 4 loss at Texas Tech. This time around, no harm done.

• Underwhelming under the basket

One of the strangest statistics of the young season: Central Arkansas outrebounded KU by two, 38-36. The greatest disparity came on the offensive glass, where the Bears gathered 18 of their 31 misses to KU’s 10 of 25. If there were one category in which you’d think KU would always have the upper hand over a struggling low-major team, it would be rebounding. The Bears’ top two post players stood 6-foot-8 (junior center Carlos Dos Santos, 20 percent rebound rate on Thursday) and 6-foot-6 (senior forward Mitch Reuter, 25 percent). Kansas’ contributing big men included Aldrich (6-foot-11, 18 percent), Robinson (6-foot-9, 62 percent) and Markieff Morris (6-foot-9, 31 percent). KU’s losing the rebounding battle clearly didn’t impact the outcome much, but it’s still an interesting occurrence. Was it the by product of an off-night from Aldrich or merely some fluky bounces?

Could be the bounces:

Rebounding, starting backcourts

Central Arkansas

• Qahwash — 16 percent

• Rehmel — 8 percent

• Pouncy — 20 percent

Kansas

• Collins — 3 percent

• Taylor — 6 percent

• Henry — 14 percent

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Rebounding advantage or no, this was the kind of walloping that doesn’t come around often — even for KU, one of the nation’s most well-regarded wallopers.

KU’s +0.77 points per possession margin against Central Arkansas was the worst trouncing of a Division I team by a Big 12 squad since Kansas State’s +.78 PPP shellacking of Gardner-Webb last Dec. 14. The last time KU beat an opponent this badly was Feb. 17, 2007, when KU topped Nebraska by 0.77 PPP and by a 92-39 score.

Bottom line: Tuesday’s close call against Memphis isn’t worth worrying about. Memphis is better than everyone thought it was, and KU could be too.

*And how about Tyrel Reed, zone-buster? The junior guard finally found his groove, scoring 12 points on five shots and posting a team-best 309(!) offensive rating.