photo by: AP Photo/Lucas Peltier

Kansas head coach Bill Self reacts during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Duke Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, in Las Vegas.

When the dust settled after Kansas’ victory over Duke, when the final echoes of Kon Knueppel’s last-second shot clanging off the backboard and the rim had subsided, there was still another game left to be played on Tuesday night at T-Mobile Arena.

In what could charitably be described as the undercard of ESPN’s Vegas Showdown event, the Furman Paladins out of Greenville, South Carolina, and the Southern Conference led for the final 18 minutes and 26 seconds, keeping Seattle U at arm’s length in a 61-56 victory.

That boosted Furman to 7-0 on the season; now, as Seattle travels to face Duke at Cameron Indoor Stadium, the Paladins will take their unbeaten season on the road to Allen Fieldhouse in what is officially the second phase of the Vegas Showdown.

Furman will meet KU at 5 p.m. on Saturday in just the second-ever meeting between the two programs. The Jayhawks won the first, 101-60, on Dec. 20, 1993.

From KU’s perspective, this game is the final one in Lawrence for two weeks — the longest the Jayhawks will go without playing there at any point during the regular season — as the team heads out to consecutive road dates at Creighton and Missouri after facing the Paladins.

By the morning after its win over Seattle, Furman ranked 47 spots higher in KenPom’s rankings than the next closest mid-major KU has played this season (UNC Wilmington). Of course, at the same time the Jayhawks had also played and beaten KenPom’s Nos. 5 (Duke), 13 (North Carolina) and 42 (Michigan State) teams, two on neutral courts.

The Paladins have yet to face a power-conference team during the regular season, as their best wins along with Seattle are against the likes of Belmont and Jacksonville. Furman did host Auburn, a top-five team nationally, for an exhibition matchup that it lost 83-62.

Furman has been excellent on defense thus far this season, allowing one of the lowest points-per-game averages in the nation at 58.0. On offense, the Paladins are first in their league thus far in assists per game. While the strong ball movement is a teamwide trend — five players average at least two assists — they are led by their preseason all-conference guard Pjay Smith, a senior and onetime Division II transfer who also paces the team with 19.2 points per game.

Smith is shooting a whopping 53.3% from beyond the arc this season, and fellow guard Nick Anderson, another Division II transfer, isn’t far behind at 50%. Against Seattle, 6-foot-11 forward Cooper Bowser seized the spotlight with a 17-point, 12-rebound double-double.

The Paladins may be a projected fifth-place SoCon team, but they’ve shown the capacity for a high-major upset before. Two years ago, Bob Richey’s team knocked Virginia out of the NCAA Tournament on a go-ahead 3-pointer with two seconds left. The current team has a few holdovers from that squad, most notably Garrett Hien, Tyrese Hughey and Ben VanderWal.

No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks (6-0) vs. Furman Paladins (7-0)

• Allen Fieldhouse, Lawrence, 5 p.m.

• Broadcast: ESPN+

• Radio: Jayhawk Radio Network (in Lawrence, KLWN AM 1320 / K269GB FM 101.7 / KMXN FM 92.9)

Keep an eye out

Scoring in bunches: It’s early, but the Paladins are shooting more than 40% from deep thanks to the efforts of Smith and Anderson. KU most recently allowed Duke to go 11-for-26 (42.3%), one of the main reasons the Blue Devils refused to go away in the face of a pair of big runs by the Jayhawks. Granted, they had done a solid job defending the arc prior to Tuesday night, so Saturday’s game could provide an opportunity to return to form against some strong shooters.

Back on track: Tuesday was a night to forget for KU center Hunter Dickinson, the Jayhawks’ consensus best player who missed the last quarter of the game after getting ejected for a flagrant foul and wasn’t particularly good even when he was on the floor. He missed a series of easy shots at the rim and ended up 4-for-11 with 11 points and six rebounds. KU coach Bill Self said he thought the ejection would serve as a lesson. Dickinson has already displayed his peak form this year, particularly in the Champions Classic against Michigan State, but a steady outing against Furman could be the start of a consistency-building process ahead of Big 12 play.

Might take some getting used to: It won’t affect the Jayhawks’ on-court performance, but it is literally on the court: KU reached a deal with longtime sponsor FNBO (First National Bank of Omaha) that puts two instances of the company’s logo near the center of the James Naismith Court at Allen Fieldhouse. The announcement of the sponsorship deal on Tuesday, with an accompanying video featuring Self and women’s basketball coach Brandon Schneider, had some fans complaining about the sanctity of the storied court, others content with their school taking in a bunch of money from the sponsorship and still others simply irritated that FNBO’s green logo clashes with the crimson-and-blue color scheme. The logo will make its on-court debut, kicking off a multi-year arrangement, on Saturday.

Off-kilter observation

Bowser spent a year at Sunrise Christian Academy, the postgraduate prep school that also produced recent KU players like Gradey Dick and Zach Clemence.