Post-Game Awards: Texas (Round Two)

Beware of the Blog’s Player of the Game is Andrew Wiggins. Again, for the second game in a row, it’s not really close. For the first 12 minutes of this game Andrew Wiggins looked as good as any Jayhawk has looked in recent memory. Kansas was down 8-3 and looked out of sorts on both ends of the floor. Then Wiggins took over. He put on a Kevin Durant-like performance outscoring Texas 15-2 over a 6 minute stretch. The rest of the team would soon catch on and blow Texas out of the water before the intermission buzzer sounded. Wiggins started to defer the scoring to others once the game was comfortable, but had the look of a man who could have dropped 40 last night if he wanted to. His jumper was quick and pure, his dunks a little more spectacular. He would finish the game with 21 points in 27 minutes. He shot 58.3% for the game and hit 3-of-5 threes. He also stuffed the stat sheet adding 100% of his free throws, six rebounds, a steal, two blocks and smothering defense.

Wiggins is running away with the Player of the Year award at this point. The game is slowing down for him and he is starting to know exactly where his shot is going to come from in the offense. On top of that, he has developed into KU’s best perimeter defender and he really tries on that end. When Selden and Tharpe buckle down on D like they did in this one, all of a sudden this KU team gets incredibly hard to score on. Giving their offensive proficiency, that defensive focus seems like the last step the team has to take, and Wiggins is leading the way.

Current Standings:

• 1. Andrew Wiggins (8)
  
• 2. Perry Ellis (5)
  
• T-3. Naadir Tharpe (4)
• T-3. Wayne Selden (4)
• T-4. Joel Embiid (2)
  
• T-4. Frank Mason (2)
• T-5. Tarik Black (1)
• T-5. Brannen Greene (1)

You let the whole team down Perry Ellis. It’s tough to pick on anybody in a game where everyone played well and KU blows out the 2nd place team in the toughest conference in America by 30 points. But, rules are rules so I am going with Perry and I will keep it brief. 1. Perry joined Naadir as the only guys  who couldn’t get their shots to fall against Texas. He shot it 33%. But the reason Perry gets the finger wag was his defense. Naadir shut down Taylor who smoked KU in Austin. Perry got pushed around on defense against Texas’ big men. Perry is more of a finesse player, I get that, but he has to do better even when he is physically outmatched. Some of it is just buying in and willing yourself to stop your man from catching the ball in the first place. Sometimes I don’t think he has the right focus. Case and point was a play where he helped on a ball screen in the second half. His man popped for a three and got the quick reversal. Perry essentially watched the play happen and made no real effort to close back out on the shooter. His man scored and Self pulled Perry back to the bench.