Kansas City, Missouri — In early January, the Kansas men’s basketball team obliterated UCF on its home floor in one of the most convincing wins of the season in all of college basketball.
In the two matchups between those teams since, things have been much tougher for the Jayhawks.
But thanks to some clutch plays late and a hot-shooting night from several Kansas players, the Jayhawks survived Round 3 with UCF, 98-94 in overtime in the opening game of the Big 12 tournament at T-Mobile Center.
The win, which secured the season sweep of the Knights, moved 6th-seeded Kansas into Thursday’s quarterfinals, where they’ll have a rematch with No. 3 seed Arizona at 8:30 p.m. Thursday night in the same building.
Zeke Mayo scored 24 points, knocking in five 3-pointers for the second straight game. Hunter Dickinson added 23 and 13, with 20 of those coming in the second half. And AJ Storr broke out with a season-high 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting, including three makes from 3-point range.
Without all of that, the Jayhawks might not have survived this one.
Here’s a look back at some of the highlights from Wednesday night’s opening-round battle with UCF in KCMO.
LIKES
• KJ’s big stand – There were a lot of great moments in this one, individually especially. But few were as awesome as the late defensive stop by KJ Adams on Keyshawn Hall in the final minutes. The stop, which forced a turnover by Hall, was reminiscent of Adams entering the game before the end of the first half in the Elite Eight game against Miami back in 2022 and locking down the Hurricanes best scorer, Kam McGusty, on the final possession before halftime. While this one produced a turnover out of bounds, Adams finished the night with 3 steals, one of the few bright spots in an otherwise rough defensive outing by Kansas.
• Late response after falling behind – After runs by UCF of 14-0 and 19-2 completely erased what once was a double-digit KU lead, the Jayhawks dug down and found a way to respond. Credit the KU crowd inside T-Mobile Center for a good chunk of the energy and credit the Jayhawks for bringing a lot of it themselves. The Jayhawks quickly responded with a couple of stops and scores and regained control of the game, before letting it slip away again in the final minute. Fortunately for the Jayhawks, that one only led to a tie at the end of regulation, which yet again allowed the Jayhawks to regain control in overtime. KU never trailed in the overtime period and made some clutch free throws and defensive stops to secure the victory. Closing out games used to be an issue for this team. But they found a way to do it last weekend against Arizona after giving up a big lead and then did it again Wednesday night. That’s a pretty key development for a team heading into the postseason.
• Zeke stays hot – After breaking out of his slump in a big way on Senior Day over the weekend, KU guard Zeke Mayo picked up where he left off right away in this one. Mayo scored the first 8 points of the game, to lead UCF by himself, 8-0 in the first few minutes, and drained his third triple of the half 10 minutes later to put Kansas up 25-22 to give him 11 points in 12 minutes of game action. While the point production was nice, the bigger bonus was more about how it looked. Mayo was cool, confident and, most importantly didn’t hesitate to pull any of the shots he took. That kind of attack-mode mentality is exactly what Kansas needs Mayo to carry with him throughout the postseason, and the last two games have inspired some KU fans to start mentioning past March runs by Malik Newman and Remy Martin in response to the way Mayo has started to heat up. We might not be there quite yet, but he’s getting closer.
• Flory on the offensive glass – The freshman big man was a monster on the offensive glass in the first half of this one, grabbing 4 boards on that end and 2 more on the other end to give him 6 for the half on his way to 6 for the game. Bidunga’s size and length certainly give him an advantage on the boards against a lot of people, but these rebounds were the product of him just out-working people. He turned two of the four boards into instant points, which proved to be big in the end, on an otherwise rough night that saw him sit for all but 3 minutes of the final 25.
DISLIKES
• Hunter’s quiet night… to start – UCF’s pretty long and athletic and runs a lot of bodies through the front court. So, there’s at least a reason behind the way he was neutralized during this one. But it was particularly quiet in the first half, when Dickinson was 1-for-5 from the floor for just 3 points, 5 rebounds and 2 turnovers in 16 minutes. This, after KU’s double-double machine was dominant in his last game against Arizona, tying a career-high with 33 points in that one. Dickinson opened the second half with much greater energy and effort, scoring in tight on a couple of early possessions and playing with a little more bounce in his step, on both ends, throughout most of the second half. UCF never let him get fully comfortable, though, and that clearly affected Kansas for much of the night. Dickinson did get hot from 3 in the second half and, believe it or not, managed to finish with 23 points and 13 rebounds, nearly all of it coming in the second half and overtime.
• First-half defense – So many times in the first half — and, really, throughout the game, the Jayhawks gave up easy basket after easy basket when the Knights put their heads down and just drove it to the rim. There wasn’t much wiggle in anything UCF did to get to the rim, which made the layups the Jayhawks surrendered all the more concerning. If you’ve followed along for any amount of time, you know how much Self hates giving up easy points of that variety. So, you can imagine how often he was looking to his bench and trying to light a fire under these guys to get them to guard the ball.
• 3-point D (again) – It wasn’t just that UCF made 14 of the 33 3-point shots it took on Wednesday night (42.4%), though that certainly hurt. It was more the fact that so many of those attempts were wide open. UCF even missed a handful of wide-open looks, or else it would’ve been an even tougher night for the Kansas defense. Give KU credit for finding a way to at least match them, though, knocking in 12 of their own in the win. Without that, KU would’ve found itself trying to trade 2s for 3s again, and we’ve seen far too often how that works.
WHAT THE?
• AJ Storr gets going; fool’s gold or real deal? – The enigmatic KU guard had a wildly productive first half, scoring 9 points on 4-of-5 shooting in 9 minutes to help KU claim a three-point lead at the break. He finished with 19 on 7-of-11 shooting, with 3 3-pointers to his stat line. Storr scored off the dribble, from the outside and off of plays made by others. He also watched his confidence grow with every bucket and positive play. It’s been a rough season for Storr — and his confidence — but his production on Wednesday night has to be considered a welcome sight as the Jayhawks head into postseason play. The question we have to answer now is whether that’s a sign of things to come or a flash in the pan. The last time we reached this point — after a 12-point outing at TCU on Jan. 22 — Storr responded with a few duds in a row and never really found it consistently from there. Definitely something to keep an eye on. Even if the Jayhawks can just get 70-80% of the production from him that they thought they’d get, as a 7th or 8th man, it would qualify as a big development. Right now, though, that’s a big if.
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