Kansas Basketball: It’s time to buy stock in Christian Braun

Kansas Basketball freshman guard Christian Braun is growing as a player every single week. He could serve as a key player as the season progresses into 2020.

One of the best parts of being a fan of college basketball is seeing young players grow up over the course of a season.

Whether you’re a McDonald’s All-American or a two-star recruit, life is difficult as a freshman in college basketball. Many players don’t become fully comfortable on the floor until the end of the non-conference season, others take even longer; but regardless of when that happens, there is typically a specific moment or play where it was evident that the player had finally found that said confidence.

For Christian Braun, the 6-6 guard from Blue Valley Northwest High School, that moment came in a road game against the 18th ranked team in the country.

When Marcus Garrett went out of the game late in the first half with an injury, Kansas basketball coach Bill Self needed one of his bench players to step up. Braun was that player.

Braun provided 16 valuable minutes and was able to make two game-changing plays on both ends of the floor.  Those plays — which were made in the game’s final minutes — featured a perfectly-timed block and a highly-contested layup both made by Braun. These clutch moments from the freshman should have clinched the win for the Jayhawks; however, that didn’t end up being the case.

Braun’s clutch performance earned praise from both coaches and teammates.

“He came in and gave us that spark. The biggest thing was telling him in the second half to be aggressive. We needed him to be aggressive. He got the block then he got the and-one, so, yeah, that was big for us,” Garrett said.

“I thought he was pretty good,” Self said of Braun in a press conference. “He still hasn’t made any shots yet. Wait until he starts making some shots and then he’ll be much more effective.”

Self didn’t know it at the time, but his comment perfectly foreshadowed what Braun would go on to do in his next performance.

In their next matchup, Kansas would go on to play a Stanford Cardinal team that had only suffered one loss on the season. And for the second week in a row, Kansas basketball would have to play this tough opponent on the road.

With the Jayhawks falling just short of beating two top 20 teams in Duke and Villanova, they desperately needed this win to bolster their non-conference season resume. They were able to defeat a ranked Dayton team in Maui, as well as a ranked Colorado team in Lawrence, but they had zero true road wins.

Everyone knew that a win against a Jerod Haase coached Stanford team wouldn’t come easy, and they were right. It definitely wasn’t easy, nor pretty, but the Jayhawks were able to leave Stanford, California with a much needed double-digit victory.

Isaiah Moss, Ochai Agbaji, and Devon Dotson were all excellent in the second half for Kansas, but for the second game in a row, Braun made a major impact coming off the bench. In 19 minutes, he tallied nine points on 3-of-4 shooting from the three-point line, as well as two rebounds and one assist. Braun also played great on-ball defense all game long against a variety of Cardinal players.

What was most impressive about Braun’s performance was how confident he looked on offense.

In a game where seemingly every Jayhawk not named Isaiah Moss was missing open shots left and right, Braun looked as confident as ever in his shooting stroke. In fact, Braun not only made three 3-pointers, but he also created two open three-point opportunities by performing flawless stepback moves.

Plays such as the stepback three-pointers against Stanford and the late-game block against Villanova epitomize Braun’s progression into a confident Division I player.

In his debut performance against Duke at Madison Square Garden, Braun played a total of four minutes and only looked at the rim once on offense. He looked skittish, to say the least. Two months later, he has become Kansas basketball’s second most important bench piece.

But for the people who paid any attention to Braun’s high school career, they are used to seeing clutch shots, posterizing dunks, and suffocating defense from the former Kansas Gatorade Player of the Year. His dynamic playmaking ability is the reason Self recruited him in the first place.

As he continues to progress as a player at this level, that ability will start to surface on a more consistent basis.

Due to players such as Dotson and Agbaji being the main scoring threats in the backcourt, it’s not likely that Braun will transform into one of the stars of the team. However, he will be counted on as one of the team’s most important role players.

The Jayhawks aren’t exactly loaded in terms of backcourt depth. With that in mind, in times of injury or foul trouble, having a guard on the bench who can play the one, two, and three on offense is critical to postseason success.

But the area where Braun can benefit Kansas the most in is outside shooting. He is currently shooting 36% from beyond the arc so far this season. If he can improve that number to 40% or better by the end of conference play, the assets of Moss and Braun coming off the bench will cause nightmares for opposing teams, and will only open up more driving lanes for the other Kansas guards.

The sky is truly the limit for the Burlington, Kansas native. With his size and scoring ability, Bruan has the opportunity to not only help Kansas basketball win a national title this season, but to also have a banner college career.