Kansas basketball won its third straight road game and its sixth consecutive Big 12 matchup on Monday with a 64-61 victory over Texas Tech.
The good news is that Darryn Peterson, the oft-injured but sensational freshman, played 35 minutes. He overcame a quiet second half to score two three-pointers in the waning minutes. Those shots tied, then put the Jayhawks ahead, and secured the road win.
It was another well-balanced offensive attack, with all the starters except Bryson Tiller scoring in double figures. Tiller, who had been an offensive force the previous two games, only scored four, but he contributed in other ways with 10 rebounds, two steals, and two blocks.
There was one concerning issue, however, against Texas Tech that the Jayhawks need to clean up.
Turnovers were a problem for the Kansas basketball team vs. Texas Tech
KU committed 15 turnovers on Monday against the Red Raiders and had only 10 assists. This was a drastic reversal from what Kansas did on Saturday against BYU. In that game, KU has just six turnovers to 17 assists. On the season, the Jayhawks average 15.1 assists to 10.4 turnovers per game.
The offensive results were clear. Against Texas Tech, the offense was stale. There was more dribbling instead of passing and reversing the ball. Players weren't getting the ball into the hands of their teammates in positions where they could score.
The biggest culprit of late has been the dependable Tre White. He has only 46 turnovers on the year, and nine of them have come in the last two games. He had five of the team's six total turnovers against BYU and committed four more against Tech.
This is a fixable issue for both the Jayhawks and White. In the case of the latter, several of those turnovers came on lazy, sloppy passes, which isn't something he does regularly. On most of the plays in which he turned the ball over, he was trying to get teammates involved and just didn't make great passes. He will get over this, and it will have been just a bump in the road.
For the team, it needs to return to the crisp, clean passing it produced over most of the games in their winning streak. Of course, the Red Raiders' defense forced KU out of its comfort zone a bit, but the Jayhawks need to quickly get back to their crisp ball movement and working to get everyone involved. That has been a significant aspect of their recent success.
The Jayhawks survived a tough match-up against a quality opponent on the road. Not all wins have to be the pretty kind. Head coach Bill Self will certainly address the sloppiness that led to turnovers, and Kansas will be ready on Saturday for Utah.
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