Kansas basketball: Perimeter troubles could be playing into the Jayhawk’s conference trouble
Kansas basketball is starting to lack in the three-point department, this could hinder some of the expectations we held previously for the season.
Following a tough road loss to Oklahoma State, Kansas basketball will look to pick themselves up again. A worrying defensive presence may be causing the Jayhawks to fall behind in games, but some attention should be paid to their performance outside the arc.
Between Ochai Agbaji, Jalen Wilson, and Christian Braun, Kansas has a solid amount of talent to use from the outside. Unfortunately, all three haven’t been syncing up as of late.
In the recent loss to the Cowboys, Agbaji was able to rack up four threes on nine attempts and Braun found one. Wilson wasn’t able to connect on any of his four opportunities from the outside.
Despite sitting near the top of the conference for three-point field goals, their latest appearance didn’t reflect this statistic very well. Kansas will need to improve from the outside and help use this to build an edge offensively.
Even when Kansas falls short defensively but this can always be mitigated by picking up the slack offensively. Going into conference play, the Jayhawks had built their reputation behind their high scoring tendencies. Now, they’ve struggled to click offensively and this has exposed their weakness.
Getting behind early has been an issue against schools such as Oklahoma and Texas. Yet against Oklahoma State, Kansas led 19-18 in the first half. Keeping competitive is a good thing but being unable to roll with the punches seems to be taxing the Jayhawks down the stretch.
The Jayhawks, with significant help from David McCormack, were able to scramble back in it with a 17-2 run late in the second half. It’s good to see that Kansas can get hot during ‘crunch time’ but this isn’t going to cut it going into the rest of our schedule.
Some credit is well deserved though for Kansas, as by the time 9:00 hit the clock in the second half, a lot of us probably counted the Jayhawks out of the race. Hopefully, this will be something Kansas will look at in practice, along with their perimeter shooting.