It was a big night for the state of Kansas when it came to basketball. The Jayhawks were going for a school record 63rd- consecutive home win. Kansas State, following a Michigan State loss to Connecticut, were playing to become the No. 1 team in the country against the actual No. 1 team in the country, Duke.
Big night.
The Wildcats lost, but the Jayhawks took care of business with a commanding, domineering, insert-your-favorite-descriptive-synonym 82-41 win against the Islanders of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
The Jayhawks were led by three reserves — Robinson (15), Travis Releford (11) and Mario Little (11) scoring in double figures. Marcus Morris, with 12, was the only starter with more than 10 points.
“I think a lot of guys off our bench would be starters for a lot of teams,” coach Bill Self said. “Certainly I think Travis and Mario, also, Elijah’s talented, Jeff is talented, so we’ve got a good 10 without question, but Thomas has really produced. He’s made the most of his minutes.”
They were also once again stellar defensively, enough so that they could have gone the entire second half without scoring and still won the game. Kansas scored 42 in the first half to the Islanders 41 at the end.
Islanders coach Perry Clark said the deep Kansas bench didn’t allow his players any reprieve from the defensive intensity.
“They just replace one athlete with another athlete. I don’t even know the numbers, they just kept running them in and out,” he said. “Most of the time when guys are that good offensively, you’ve got to take some pride to make them play that way defensively.”
Whatever it was that Self and the Kansas coaches did to make the Jayhawks play as well as they did defensively, it was working Tuesday night. The Islanders only managed 17 points on 32 percent shooting in the first half, and the Jayhawks, led by Brady Morningstar’s four, had seven steals before the break.
“The more you play in college, not the easier it gets defensively, but the more the game slows down and you can cheat here or cheat there,” Morningstar said. “We just have to keep working every day on defense and Coach is going to keep preaching that.”
It was the first defensive effort of the season that Self has had effusive praise for the team as a defensive unit.
“We have improved in that area 50 percent at least since 10 days ago,” he said. “We have gotten a lot better.”
The defense, particularly the steals, were crucial to the offensive success. The Jayhawks had 22 points off turnovers, 19 of them in the first half. Four of the Jayhawks steals led to breakaway dunks.
“Getting a fast break,” Morningstar said about what the most rewarding part of defense is. “Then you get your dunks, your alley-oops and get the crowd going. That makes everything that much easier.”