Kansas basketball: Sweet win over Clemson

Kansas basketball is moving on to the Elite 8 for a third straight season. The Big 12 Champs held on to beat Clemson in Friday night’s Sweet 16 matchup 80-76.

Kansas basketball won Friday’s Midwest Regional semifinal in the first 30 minutes. Fortunately, the Big 12 Champions know how to hang on to get big wins.  They played a lot of nail-biters this season and won all of them.

The talking heads on the CBS NCAA Tournament pregame show all picked Clemson to beat the Jayhawks. That’s exactly what we needed to hear. Nobody believed in this team. When CBS made their prediction, it almost assured the Jayhawk victory.

A healthy Udoka Azubuike made the difference from the opening tip. The 7-foot sophomore dramatically went in the air to win the opening jump ball. Twenty seconds later, Dok took a pass in the paint from Svi Mykhailiuk.  He pivoted over Clemson’s rip protector and scored. That shot set the tone for first half success. As a matter of fact, the Jayhawks outscored Clemson 26-12 in the paint in the first half. Dok finished with a double-double, 14 points and 11 rebounds.

While the Jayhawks dominated Clemson inside they also crashed the glass and closed out the first half on a 5-zip run. Lagerald Vick’s sky-high follow up dunk put the Jayhawks up 13. His huge triple in the closing seconds put an exclamation point on the first.

The Jayhawks also dominated the first minutes of the second half with a 9-2 run. They hit 4 of 5 from beyond the arc in the first four minutes of the period. That three point shooting overwhelmed the Tigers.

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Devonte Graham struggled shooting again. He still finished with 16 points. Malik Newman, Silvio De Sousa, Svi and Marcus Garrett all had significant contributions to earn the victory. On Sunday, the Jayhawks will play their eighth elite eight under Hall of Fame Coach Bill Self. No team has played in more since Self arrived in Lawrence in 2003.