Quick Hitters: West Virginia

Th Kansas Jayhawks took on the Mountaineers of West Virginia today in their first matchup of the conference season. With Juwan Staten leading the way, WVU kept the game close until the last couple of minutes as Kansas soared to an 84-71 victory. Let’s take a look at how the Jayhawks were able to pull out the win:

1. Can KU continue to create transition opportunities? The Jayhawks are definitely an “open court” team as they like to create opportunities to run out the ball in transition. This year, creating transition opportunities has been difficult for Kansas because they haven’t been able to get the defensive stops that they’ve gotten in the past to create run outs and chances to score in the open court. Unfortunately, the same was true for the majority of the game today against West Virginia. Frank Mason had a tremendous play where he broke his defenders ankles and powered to the rim to score a layup, and it seemed as if Wiggins was able to create some transition plays for himself with his typical, freakish two-step jaunt to the rim, but other than that this Jayhawk defense didn’t step up and create a whole lot of other opportunities in the open court. As their defense continues to improve, the Jayhawks will be able to create more chances to run and gun out in the open court, giving them a huge offensive advantage against slower and less athletic opponents.

2. Embiid bounce back? This is a tricky one. I guess you could argue that Joel bounced back during today’s game as he put up a double-double with 11 points and 12 rebounds. However, Embiid played just 17 minutes as he sat on the bench with his fourth foul and four points with 10 minutes left to play. In the last four minutes of the game, Joel had a couple of buckets and some free throws which ultimately propelled him to get his sixth double-double of the season. I don’t know if I’d call his performance a “bounce back” as he played only 17 minutes and recorded most of his numbers in the last few minutes of the game when KU basically had it won, but it’s nice to know that this Jayhawk team doesn’t need him to put up double figures every game. However, they will need him to bounce back and put up quality stats if they want to have a chance to cut down the nets in March.

3. Which Naadir do we get? Today we didn’t get the good Naadir. As Tharpe had just five points and one turnover along with four assists, he didn’t facilitate the game like this young Kansas team needs him to. Fortunately for the Jayhawks, Frank Mason was able to come in and step up at the point guard spot when they needed some direction on offense. We all know that Naadir Tharpe is the glue to this team as Kansas relies heavily on his decision making and his ability to create open shots for his teammates, but it’s nice to have Frank Mason come in and facilitate things when Naadir isn’t playing his best.