The No. 17 Kansas Jayhawks are days away from beginning conference play. The early portions of the season are long gone, and now come the arduous winter days of Big 12 Basketball. Historically, this is something Kansas has dominated, winning 21 regular-season titles since 1997.
However, in the modern era of collegiate basketball, the Jayhawks have been slightly knocked off their perch, with the Houston Cougars claiming back-to-back titles in their first two years in the conference, meaning that in order to prevent a three-peat, the Jayhawks must do the little things right.
One of the many little things is bench points. This has been an underappreciated thorn in the side of the Jayhawks all season long.
As of writing, the Jayhawks sit 346th in the nation with just 14.85 points per game off the bench. For reference, there are only four teams that average fewer bench points than the Jayhawks.
In two of Kansas’ three losses this season they lost the bench point battle with a 13-point differential in Kansas’ 12-point loss to the No. 5 Duke Blue Devils, and a six-point differential in a five-point loss to the No. 5 UConn Huskies.
Yet, things took a bit of a positive spin when the Jayhawks took on the Davidson Wildcats in a massive 90-61 win, which saw Kansas notch 23 points off the bench. Just for comparison, in Kansas’ last matchup, a 73-49 win over Towson, Kansas scored nine. In the matchup before, a 77-7 overtime win against NC State, nine once again.
“I thought he [Kohl Rosario] got out a lot of shots per minute,” quoted head coach Bill Self following Davidson. “You know, he needs to see the ball go in the basket and he did, and that was good, and made a couple athletic plays. So that was fun to see. I thought Jayden Dawson played well. So that was good to see.”
Rosario carried a bulk of the 23 points of the bench with 13 from the true freshman.
The next chance to see Kansas hit the hardwood is against UCF on January 3rd, with tipoff set for 1 p.m. CT and streaming available on Peacock.
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