photo by: Nick Krug

Kansas guard AJ Storr (2) soars in for a dunk against Oakland during the first half on Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024 at Allen Fieldhouse.

Kansas basketball blew out Oakland 78-57 at Allen Fieldhouse to move to 4-0 on the season, led by its frontcourt’s strong performance in the first half.

Behind wing AJ Storr’s 16 points on the night, KJ Adams was second on the team with 12 points, and Rylan Griffen was third with 11. The Jayhawks shot 57.1% from the field and 40.0% from 3-point range while holding the Golden Grizzlies to 43.6% from the field and 27.3% from distance.

It was the first time Zeke Mayo, a former Lawrence High School graduate, got his name called as a starter at Allen Fieldhouse, and he started with the first bucket for the Jayhawks.

KU held an apparent size advantage over the Golden Grizzlies, and the Jayhawks turned to Adams at the rim early in the contest. The game plan heavily relied upon big men Adams and Hunter Dickinson, while the backcourt shot a season-best mark from beyond the 3-point line.

Almost every Jayhawk shot above 50% from the field in the first half, but some more encouraging plays came from newcomers like Storr and Shakeel Moore. Storr had two quick baskets at the rim, followed by an assist on a bucket by Dickinson and a defensive rebound. Moore came in late in the half for his KU debut and assisted Dickinson on his first possession. He had two rebounds and a bucket in five minutes of action in the first half.

“It was a lot of excitement,” Moore said of his opening minutes following a broken foot in early September. “It’s been a rough summer, for sure. I’m just glad to be back out there and feeling good.”

Kansas coach Bill Self said that Moore was on a minutes restriction Saturday night, and Moore added that he felt some soreness after that first half. Going forward, Self said he expects to see more minutes consistently.

“(Shakeel) is a very good defender, on the ball and off the ball,” freshman center Flory Bidunga said of Moore. “He is someone we really like to have on the team.”

Of KU’s 46 first-half points, 26 came in the paint. The Jayhawks pushed their lead to double digits around the 10-minute mark, and they held that lead through the half, making it to a 22-point lead with a Griffen 3-pointer just before the first-half buzzer.

At halftime, Adams was the lone Jayhawk with double-digit scoring at 10 points. Griffen’s 3-point shooting pushed him to second on the team with nine points, and Dickinson added six.

The Jayhawks assisted on 24 of their 32 made baskets. Self said after the game that the ball tends to get around a bit more when playing against a zone defense like what Oakland played.

Kansas had a slow start to the second half by hitting only one of the team’s first six shots. The Jayhawks improved slightly but were still 5-for-14 from the field with 10 minutes remaining. It was a less frontcourt-heavy attack, and Kansas finished with 14 of the team’s 32 points coming in the paint in the second half.

Storr, however, led a second-half charge to keep the Jayhawks adding to their lead. He started the half 5-for-7 from the field, including an emphatic dunk and two 3-pointers in a four-possession span. His 12-point second half pushed him to become the team’s leading scorer, and the Jayhawks nearly stretched their lead to 30 points before the starters checked out of the game.

“It’s good to see AJ see the ball go through the basket,” Self said.

Kansas deployed its reserves for the final three minutes to finish the game out.

The result was Self’s 592nd victory with Jayhawks, after he had passed Phog Allen as the school’s all-time winningest coach by beating Michigan State in Atlanta on Tuesday. KU unveiled a banner at Allen Fieldhouse below its retired jerseys to commemorate the accomplishment.

The Jayhawks will host UNC Wilmington on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

photo by: Nick Krug

A banner is dropped to commemorate Kansas head coach Bill Self as the winningest coach in the program’s history on Saturday, Nov. 16, 2024 at Allen Fieldhouse.

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