Kansas forward K.J. Adams Jr. (24) celebrates a dunk against North Carolina Central during the second half on Monday, Nov. 6, 2023 at Allen Fieldhouse. Photo by Nick Krug

The Kansas men’s basketball team didn’t dazzle from the field Friday night quite like it had in its season opener — that would have been a high bar to clear — but at least it got its shots off the ground early on.

Its foe, Manhattan College, had nine shots blocked in the first half by six separate Jayhawks, allowing KU to equal its second-highest quantity of blocks in a half since the program started recording such stats.

Each member of the starting lineup blocked at least one attempt from the Jaspers in the first 16 minutes of the game — yes, including point guard Dajuan Harris Jr., who swatted a layup attempt by Shaquil Bender, and freshman Elmarko Jackson. Parker Braun had three blocks off the bench in seven first-half minutes.

“That’s part of defense, is — when you make a mistake, can you recover?” KU coach Bill Self said.

The Jayhawks cooled down on defense somewhat from there. But on the opposite end, KU got high-caliber performances from Hunter Dickinson (18 points, eight rebounds), Kevin McCullar Jr. (15 points, seven rebounds, four assists) and Johnny Furphy (15 points off the bench) against the Jaspers, and the Jayhawks won 99-61 at home Friday to advance to 2-0 for the season.

KJ Adams Jr. added 14 points (including six dunks) and Braun had 10. Seydou Traore led the Jaspers with 16 points and eight rebounds.

Adams made a pair of his flashy dunks early — and four overall in the first half — to stir up the Allen Fieldhouse crowd, but it was McCullar running the show in all facets early on. He froze a defender with an impeccable shot fake to free up Adams for the first finish; the next time down he hit a 3 from the baseline; then he led KU on a break, with Jackson zooming along next to him, and set up Jackson for a transition layup. That put the Jayhawks up 13-4 early by the first media timeout.

A couple of ugly possessions for KU led to consecutive baskets for Manhattan’s Xinyi Li and Rokas Jocys, but the Jayhawks got back on track and McCullar seized on a pass from Li for a steal that he took all the way down for a transition dunk.

Jocys drained a 3 to cut KU’s lead down to 10, but Furphy, right off the bench, answered with one of his own from the corner. He missed his next attempt but showed enough confidence to drain a pull-up jumper soon after.

Freshman Jamari McDowell made his collegiate debut 11 minutes into the game after missing Monday’s season opener due to injury. He had some jittery plays early on, including a hasty lob for Braun and a traveling call, but settled in with a nice outlet pass to lead Furphy to a contested layup in transition.

“He’s without question the one (of the perimeter newcomers) that will get his nose dirty the most … and he was excited to play,” Self said. “I was excited for him. I thought he did well.”

The consistent shot-blocking combined with a string of sloppy Manhattan turnovers — mostly dropped or sailed passes — allowed KU to extend its lead all the way to 25 points by halftime.

Manhattan started to show some promising signs from beyond the arc after going 2-for-24 in its first three halves of play this season, but had one 3-pointer wiped out by an offensive foul, and moments later Adams slammed home his fifth dunk of the game to put back a jumper by Dickinson. Li drained a 3 for real, but this time Dickinson responded immediately with a three-point play in the post to make it 59-29.

Furphy gave the Jayhawks a boost of energy when he hit a step-back 3, secured a rebound in transition and led the break, then put back a miss by McDowell all in succession.

“He looked to shoot it as soon as he got in the game, so I thought that was great,” Self said. “He’s still not where he needs to be, but he’s gaining on it every day.”

Fellow freshmen Jackson and McDowell also combined on a highlight-reel play when Jackson, who finished the game with 10 assists, pushed the floor on a fast break and found McDowell for a 3 on the wing, his first field goal as a Jayhawk.

“He’s touching the game and affecting it in many other ways than just scoring right now,” McCullar said of Jackson.

But the Jaspers saw a minor offensive uptick of their own and scored six straight points to cut the deficit to 88-51 on a three-point play by Brett Rumple and a 3 by Perry Cowan with under five minutes to go.

Much to the crowd’s dismay, KU stalled at 99 points for the second straight game despite some shooting success late.

“I kind of wish I would have played my starters a few more minutes, but I thought the reserves did pretty well and we did some good things tonight,” Self said. “The ball moved fairly well. I thought we didn’t guard anybody the second half, but I thought the first half we guarded pretty well, rebounded it pretty well.”

The Jayhawks will travel to Chicago to face No. 16 Kentucky in the Champions Classic Tuesday.

“That’s a game that everybody looks forward to, two blue bloods going at it, and we can’t wait for it,” McCullar said.

The Wildcats topped Texas A&M-Commerce 81-61 Friday night.

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