Kansas forward Flory Bidunga (40) blocks a shot off the backboard from UCF guard Keyshawn Hall (4) during the first half on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025 at Allen Fieldhouse. At left is Kansas center Hunter Dickinson (1). Photo by Nick Krug

The first Kansas men’s basketball game without Dajuan Harris Jr. in the lineup since March 7, 2020, featured some never-before-seen sets of five Jayhawks.

As KU coach Bill Self searched for answers, there were groups without point guards. There were groups with three big men. One lineup late in the first half even fulfilled both those constraints.

Two constants amid much of the turnover were Hunter Dickinson and Zeke Mayo, who combined for 48 points as the Jayhawks withstood a valiant effort by UCF and won 91-87 on Tuesday night.

“We didn’t want one to turn into two,” Mayo said, referencing KU’s heartbreaking loss to Houston on Saturday. “It took a lot of heart, a lot of grit from our guys to dig down deep. Obviously a lot of us played a ton of minutes. It was definitely a tough win, but it was what we expected.”

Returning after missing three games due to a dislocated shoulder, KU forward KJ Adams played tight defense on Keyshawn Hall — who had previously scored 34 points on the night — to force a pair of empty possessions in the final moments.

“He’s just got so much heart, plays with so much aggression, so much passion,” Mayo said. “He brings an energy to our team that it’s hard to find in somebody else. He’s very gritty and that’s a guy that we need for the rest of the year. He means so much to us, to our program, to our coaches.”

Adams finished with 12 points, as did reserve guard David Coit, who played a season-high 28 minutes.

“I was a little tired, but besides that, it felt good just to get a win,” Coit said.

Coit did his best to limit Darius Johnson, who still put up 19 points. UCF center Moustapha Thiam also scored 17.

KU played without Harris after the starting point guard tweaked his ankle during Monday’s practice. The injury, which also snapped a streak of 98 straight starts for Harris, moved guard Shakeel Moore to the point and wing Rylan Griffen into the starting lineup.

Three-point shooting dominated the early stages of the game for both squads. By the under-16 timeout, which arrived a little late with 13:29 remaining in the first half, Mayo had made three 3s on his own, but UCF had scored four as a team, limiting the Knights’ early deficit to 21-18.

“Our offense early was just he and Hunter passing and playing off each other,” Self said of Mayo. “It didn’t involve anybody else and that was frustrating … We were forcing him to make every play and be the only one to move, and so that was frustrating.”

Adams and Coit were first off the bench, closely followed by Rakease Passmore when Moore incurred his second foul of the night. The resulting lineup turned the ball over repeatedly before a stepback 3 by Coit.

KU briefly retook the lead on an inside bucket by Dickinson as it frantically shuffled through lineups rarely seen over the course of the season. Then the Jayhawks promptly embarked on a lengthy shooting drought, and UCF went up 37-34 on its eighth 3-pointer of the first half, this one by Jordan Ivy-Curry after Hall and Johnson had done most of the damage early.

KU scored four straight, but that progress got wiped away immediately by a four-point play by Hall through a foul by Adams. The Knights entered the break with a two-point lead.

UCF came out firing again and took its biggest lead of the night at nine points after making its first three attempts from beyond the arc of the second half. The Jayhawks got into an uncomfortable pattern of allowing a back-breaking 3-pointer whenever they drew close to the Knights, and it didn’t help their cause that UCF successfully pressed KU in the backcourt as it lacked a ball handler.

The Jayhawks drew within one point midway through the half on a pair of occasions after Coit connected on his third 3 and Adams had a shot goaltended at the rim.

Mayo and Coit missed once each from deep, but another goaltending call on Thiam against Adams put KU back in front, 68-67. Coit found his touch once again for his fourth 3 of the night and UCF had to call timeout.

After the stoppage, UCF went to a zone and Hall made four straight free throws. Later, with just under five minutes to go, Hall cleared the 30-point mark with a game-tying three-point play. KU had gone up by as many as five points before Hall did it again, taking advantage of the Jayhawks’ sluggish defense with another three-point play to make it 84-84 with two minutes to go.

Adams forced Hall to airball a floater with the Knights trailing 86-84. Dickinson made one of two free throws, and Johnson was able to get two offensive rebounds off his own misses to make it an 87-86 game with 38.4 to play.

Adams made both free throws after a foul on Ivy-Curry.

UCF managed to work the ball to Johnson, and Griffen fouled him as he crossed halfcourt to prevent him from getting an attempt off. The Knights contended that Johnson had been fouled in the act of shooting, but to no avail.

Dickinson and Self suggested KU was hoping to foul Johnson before he reached midcourt.

“We did not execute what we wanted to do,” Self said. “… That’s the reason why I very rarely foul, because there’s a lot of bad things that can happen when you do, and it was close to being a bad thing tonight.”

Johnson made just one of two at the line and KU eventually escaped.

“To score 91 points when we really didn’t have lineups that we’ve ever practiced out there a good majority of the time, I thought was pretty good,” Self said.

The Jayhawks, who improved to 15-5 and 6-3 in conference play, will travel to Waco, Texas, to face Baylor at 3 p.m. on Saturday. The Bears fell to BYU 93-89 in overtime on Tuesday night.

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