In a Champions Classic thriller, Bill Self overcame John Calipari in the battle of the blue bloods this Tuesday behind a trio of historic Jayhawk performances. KU came back from a 14-point deficit en route to their third victory of the year. These five statistics from the Kansas basketball win over Kentucky were particularly interesting to look at after the game.
5 stats that stick out from Kansas basketball win over Kentucky
Kansas Basketball Stat No. 1 — 27-for-36 on free throws (75%)
Bill Self’s Kansas basketball teams are never good at shooting free throws. They haven’t surpassed the 72% mark since the 2012-13 season, yet they currently rank 57th in the country at 77.4% through three games this year, which would be the highest clip since Coach arrived in 2003. If it weren’t for a few attempts by walk-on Dillon Wilihite, they’d sit at 81%.
Kansas shot 27-for-36 against Kentucky from the charity stripe and didn’t fall victim to the free throw game late. Even players like Jamari McDowell and Dajuan Harris were effective at the line. KJ Adams will be a liability in this aspect, but that’s what you get with a guy with his play style.
Having a 7-foot-2 All-American big man is something any team would wish for. But when he can shoot free throws efficiently? Man, that’s a different caliber of beast. Dickinson shot 10-for-11 from the line and nearly all his makes were perfect. Little things like those could separate KU from other schools in March.
Of course, there’s a good chance this success isn’t sustained. Free throws will always be more difficult to shoot when teams start entering hostile road environments in conference play. However, this team is showing early signs of being a much better free throw shooting team than KU’s past squads.