Kansas guard Dajuan Harris Jr. (3) tries to make a move against Samford guard Dallas Graziani (12) during the first half at Delta Center on Thursday, March 21, 2024 in Salt Lake City. Photo by Nick Krug

Salt Lake City — Thursday night’s game was far from the kind of blowout Bill Self’s Kansas basketball teams often produce in their March openers, but then again it hasn’t been a typical KU season.

The fourth-seeded Jayhawks overcame 12 first-half turnovers against No. 13 Samford’s indefatigable press defense by shooting with pinpoint accuracy, and built a 22-point lead early in the second half.

They then saw the margin reduced to just one point on two separate occasions after a colossal Bulldog run down the stretch.

But Nick Timberlake made two late free throws to boost the lead to three points, Jermaine Marshall missed a tying attempt and Elmarko Jackson threw the ball out of bounds off a Bulldog and the Jayhawks avoided their first first-round loss since 2006 by escaping the Delta Center with a 93-89 win.

“I felt that last couple minutes took forever,” said freshman Johnny Furphy, who finished with 16 points in his tournament debut. “I just kept looking at the clock, just trying to get through it.”

Hunter Dickinson, back after dislocating his right shoulder and playing with it wrapped up, had a 13-point, 10-rebound double-double by halftime and finished with 19 and 20.

“We’re saying he’s healthy and all of that stuff,” Self said postgame. “Physically I think he’s pretty good, but he hadn’t had any rhythm in practice or anything like that. For him to go get 19 and 20’s pretty good considering what he’s gone through the last two weeks.”

Dickinson gave credit to KU’s training staff for spending three hours with him a day for the past two weeks, and also said, “Painkillers work for a reason.”

Timberlake matched Dickinson’s 19 points for a season high, while KJ Adams led all Jayhawks with 20.

“(Timberlake) just made winning plays,” Dickinson said. “Obviously would want to give him the game ball, but it’s hard to do that when so many guys made winning plays.”

The Bulldogs shot 16-for-37 from deep, including 10-for-20 in the second half, when they were seemingly unstoppable for the Jayhawks right up until Marshall’s final miss.

“They shot the pigskin off the ball,” Jackson said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever played in a game, ever, where there was never a break in the action,” Self added, citing Samford’s press. “There was always something going on.”

Achor Achor had 23 points to lead Samford, followed by 18 for Jaden Campbell. Backup center Riley Allenspach came out of nowhere to go 4-for-4 from beyond the arc after shooting 6-for-25 the rest of the year.

Early in the game, Furphy broke out of his recent slump by making his first two 3-point attempts, and Timberlake hit another as KU overcame some early struggles with Samford’s press to take a 15-7 lead at the first timeout.

The Bulldogs responded with a pair of 3s of their own, but the Jayhawks continued their hot start as they missed just one of their first 11 shots. They got up as many as 11 points before a turnover by newly entering Jamari McDowell led to a transition 3 by Campbell.

Despite six turnovers in just over 10 minutes, KU continued to keep Samford at arm’s length. With nine minutes left, Adams made a contested runner through a foul; he missed the ensuing free throw, but Dickinson tipped the ball out for an offensive rebound and Adams rammed home an alley-oop from Dajuan Harris Jr. as the Jayhawks extended their advantage.

However, after a technical foul on the Samford bench, KU’s offense ground to a halt for the first time and committed turnovers on five straight possessions to boost its total to 11 on the night. The Jayhawks didn’t make a field goal for more than four minutes until Adams finished another lob. The Bulldogs got back within single digits at 42-33 when Dickinson missed a 3 and his counterpart Achor made one at the other end, and then as close as eight points, but KU managed to halt the charge and enter the half with a 10-point lead.

The Jayhawks came out of the break with a 15-3 run aided by Adams’ relentless offense — he scored in the paint thrice in three minutes — and a three-point play by Furphy.

Then came the 3-point barrage.

“The second half, when we got out ahead, then there’s no question they were the dominant team after that,” Self said. “I think we played kind of not to lose and they played in attack mode.”

Allenspach came off the bench for an ailing Achor to hit back-to-back 3s and make it 67-54. His third made it 73-62. Harris broke the press for a quick transition layup, but Rylan Jones picked up the slack for Samford with a leaning 3, the Bulldogs’ sixth of the half, that cut KU’s lead back down to 10 with 9:15 to go and forced a timeout by Self.

The situation got as scary as it could possibly get for the Jayhawks when two more 3-pointers, a free throw and a leaning layup by Jones saw their lead shaved down to one point with 5:14 to go.

“We’re in March Madness now,” Adams said. “A lot of crazy stuff happens. But when you are not disciplined in some plays like we were down the stretch, it can hurt you. We made some big plays to stop that from happening.”

Furphy got a layup goaltended, Timberlake hit a 3 and Samford went nearly four minutes without a field goal.

A.J. Staton-McCray snagged an offensive rebound to set up a 3-pointer by Campbell that made it 88-84, and KU turned it over on its next possession. Then Achor slammed home a thunderous dunk to cut the deficit in half with 38 seconds left.

Adams broke the press for a dunk, but the Bulldogs were able to get Campbell wide open for yet another 3-pointer off an inbound with 20 seconds to go.

Timberlake tried to get a dunk of his own but was fouled by Staton-McCray and made both free throws.

In the end, the Jayhawks sent a Samford-friendly crowd home unhappy.

“We knew that everybody in March Madness wants to see upsets, and you know how the crowd can get behind the opposing team when it could be an upset,” said the sidelined Kevin McCullar Jr.

Added Dickinson: “Unfortunately for them, Kansas came out on top.”

Kansas will face fifth-seeded Gonzaga Saturday at 2:15 p.m. Central Time. Gonzaga routed McNeese 86-65 on Thursday.

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