Moments That Popped: No. 1 KU 84, UNC-Wilmington 66

The nation’s top-ranked men’s basketball team moved to 5-0 on the season on Tuesday night, with an 84-66 win over UNC-Wilmington at Allen Fieldhouse.

The win marked No. 800 of Bill Self's Hall of Fame career. Self is now 800-248 overall, making him just the 16th coach to reach the 800-win mark. He joins Arkansas' John Calipari and Tennessee's Rick Barnes as the only active members of the 800-win club.

Self is now 593-143 at Kansas, with a record of 157-6 in non-conference home games at Allen Fieldhouse.

• PHOTO GALLERY FROM KU-UNC-WILMINGTON •

Four Jayhawks reached double figures in scoring on Tuesday night — led by senior point guard Dajuan Harris Jr.'s 17 points — and no one played more than 30 minutes in the victory.

After leading by just five at the break (43-38), KU outscored UNCW 41-28 in the second half to cruise to victory.

Next up, KU will get a little down time before heading to Las Vegas next week to take on No. X Duke on Tuesday, Nov. 26 in the Vegas Showdown at T-Mobile Arena.

Tipoff is slated for 8 p.m. on ESPN.

Here’s a look back at some of Tuesday night’s action vs. UNCW.

LIKES

• Quick start to the 2nd half – After leading by just 5 at the break, the Jayhawks jumped out to a 6-0 run to start the 2nd half, pushing the lead to 11 and giving them some more breathing room than they had at pretty much any point during the first half. UNCW called a timeout to regroup with 17:55 to play. Didn’t work. A little more than 4 minutes later, the Jayhawks were in complete control, leading 59-42 en route to the home win. KU started both halves with the kind of intensity Self wants to see for all 40 minutes. And, for a team with this kind of depth, he should be able to find that more often than not because of his ability to shuffle lineups and hold playing time hostage for guys who don’t stay turned up.

• Transition dominance – The Jayhawks thought they could get out and run on the Seahawks if they got stops and cleaned up the glass. And while the second part of that equation wasn’t always so great, KU did take advantage of several fast-break opportunities, outscoring UNCW 17-3 at one point and 23-6 for the game in transition.

• Dajuan’s start on defense – KU point guard Dajuan Harris Jr. picked up the intensity in this one right after the opening tip, recording a pair of assists and a steal in the game’s first 2+ minutes to get the Jayhawks out to fast start. Those numbers don’t even count the close calls when Harris almost snagged another steal or two. Dajuan was pretty dialed in throughout this one. He hit his first 3-pointer of the season in the first half (he’s now 2-for-10 on the season) and scored a couple of early buckets in the 2nd half to help Kansas stretch out its lead. By far the best of the bunch was an inside out dribble in transition that took him to the left side of the basket and forced him to finish across his body and through two defenders, picking up the hoop and the harm. The free throw missed, but KU still led 55-40 after the bucket. On the very next possession, Harris stuck his nose in there and drew a charge to make up for the missed free throw.

DISLIKES

• Too many buckets at the rim – The Kansas defense came out of the gate like gang busters in this one, pressuring the ball, forcing turnovers and turning up the intensity. It looked to me like the Jayhawks were hoping that tenacity and making UNCW uncomfortable would break their will. It didn’t. Instead, the Seahawks dug in their heels and started to get whatever they wanted on the offensive end, with a bunch of buckets coming right at the rim and on second-chance opportunities — two things that KU coach Bill Self absolutely hates giving up. A lot of that was the result of UNCW getting 9 offensive rebounds in the first half alone.

• Flory’s first stint – It’s hard to be overly critical of what freshman big man Flory Bidunga did during his first stint on the court on Tuesday night because it only lasted 14 seconds. But therein lies the issue. KU had a huge size advantage over the Seahawks entering this game, and after Bidunga picked up a foul on his first defensive possession, Self quickly went back to Dickinson at the 5. If you think back to last weekend, Self talked about Bidunga’s defense a little in the press conference after the win over Oakland. He said Bidunga fouled too much, allowed his man to catch it too easily and put himself in bad positions as a result. So, you know that was emphasized this week — and probably from June through Tuesday, if we’re being real — so to see him allow the same thing to happen so quickly in this one led to the quick hook.

• Bidunga injury – Late in the first half, Bidunga hopped/limped off the floor after falling down on defense, bringing a bit of concern to the KU bench. After initially sitting on the end of the bench to get checked out, Bidunga hopped on one leg back to the locker room before halftime and did not emerge to start the second half. He was back on the bench in warm-up clothes midway through the second half, moving around and standing for the team huddles during timeouts. So, it does not appear to be too serious of a situation. In fact, Self said after Tuesday's victory that Bidunga's right ankle injury should only keep him out for a day or two and that he possibly could've even gone back into the game on Tuesday if the stakes had been higher.

WHAT THE?

• Ref watches replay – You don’t always see it and they’re often taught not to do it, but official Tony Padilla actually stood at mid-court and watched the replay of a foul he called on Zeke Mayo with Mayo standing by his side. No words were exchanged and Mayo stood calmly while pointing up to the scoreboard. It looked as if Padilla did not quite follow through on watching the play all the way to the end, and when Mayo saw the portion of the replay that showed what he was whistled for, he dropped his head and walked away without a word. Didn’t hurt the outcome of the game or Mayo’s night by any means. It was just something you don’t see a whole lot.