Monday Notebook: Jayhawks continue to smash opponents

1. The Jayhawks Bury 19 Threes in 114-71 Win Over Texas Southern 

KU put on one of the most impressive offensive showings I’ve seen from them. They scored 66 points in the first half. Every Jayhawk who played 20 minutes or more scored at least 10 points. Five of them hit at least three threes. Svi Mykhailiuk went 5-7 from behind the arc, scoring 21 points. He is attacking a lot more than usual. He is having his best season as a Jayhawk by far to this point. Udoka Azubuike scored 20 points and added nine rebounds. These smaller teams that KU has played so far haven’t been able to touch him down low. He also had a dunk that may have broken a man’s soul.

Lagerald Vick stuffed the stat sheet, posting 19 points, 11 boards, and seven assists. He has been on a tear to start the year, and the “80% of Josh Jackson” argument isn’t bogus at all. Devonte’ Graham showed why he can still be the best player on this team as he also put up a very nice stat line of 17 points, 11 assists, and six rebounds. He played A LOT better in this game than he did last week. Hopefully this is the Graham we’ll get for the rest of the year.

Malik Newman had 12 points, going 4-6 from three. He has been a very good scorer for Kansas this year, even if he needs to figure out when and where to attack a little more still. My goodness there are a lot of stats for this game. That’s what happens when you score 114 points I suppose. Marcus Garrett had 13 points and 11 rebounds. He plays good tough defense and is a very fundamentally sound player. Bill Self probably wants to adopt him. Last but not least is Mitch Lightfoot, who scored 10 points, hit a three, and had four blocks. He, along with Graham, has really started to play well. Texas Southern led 11-10 at the first TV timeout. That’s hilarious.

2. Kansas blows out Oakland 102-59; Improves to 5-0 

This game kind of snuck up on me. I looked at the scoreboard one minute and KU was up by 11 or so, and a just a few minutes later they were up by 27 it seemed. The offense felt sluggish to me but still put up 102. That’s impressive. Udoka Azubuike was once again dominant scoring a career high 21 points and recording 10 rebounds. He was unguardable early on. He is a legit college center. Lagerald Vick and Malik Newman basically had the same game. Vick went 5-8, Newman went 5-9. Vick had two threes, Newman had one. Vick had seven rebounds, Newman had six. They each finished with 15 points and three assists as well. Vick is shooting over 50% from three this season, and Newman has scored at least 12 points in every game. Devonte Graham had 14 points and seven assists. It’s official everybody: He’s good.

Svi Mykhailiuk also had 14 points and added five boards. He missed nine shots and still scored in double figures. That wouldn’t have happened a couple years ago. Mitch Lightfoot had arguably the best game of his Kansas career, scoring 11 points and grabbing eight rebounds. He was actually really good. He’s had a very nice week of basketball. Marcus Garrett finished with 10 points and five rebounds. He continues to play solid basketball. Last on the stat sheet but first in our hearts is Chris Teahan, who got a layup! Maybe he will find a girl after all. Who am I kidding; the dude probably has three girlfriends. Sorry if these last two blurbs sound the same. They are almost the exact same thing. Both games were won by 43 points even. Hopefully the upcoming games (Syracuse, Washington, Arizona State, and Nebraska) will offer some actual intrigue.

3. Movies? Sure, why not?

FIRE. ZENGER. AND. BEATY. Beaty can’t coach. Zenger can’t hire coaches. Get rid of Zenger. Then fire Beaty. Then hire a new athletic director who will hire a new coach (Jim McElwain or Jim Mora…if they’ll answer your phone call). So this is going to be random but I do enjoy movies, a coach is similar to a director of a movie. They tell the actors/players what to do and how to do it, then let them do their thing. If the director/coach is bad and tells even good actors/players the wrong way to do something or the wrong thing to do, there’s only so much the actors/players can do to salvage the movie/game. David Beaty is a bad director. He has the camera pan when he should just zoom out. He tries to force comedy when the tone should be more somber. Worst of all he switches actors far too often. We have now seen a trilogy’s worth of David Beaty directed movies. The original was absolute garbage. The sequel at least showed some promise and had a great ending. The third was expected to ride the momentum of the the second, but it was the worst entry of the series by far. I believe a good coach can get even mediocre players to play sound football and play hard. David Beaty has never coached his players to play sound football. He must go. Give someone else a chance. Christopher Nolan directed three great Batman movies. Just three. All of them were good but he only made three. Why should David Beaty be allowed to direct a FOURTH terrible football season. It’s time to hire a new director.

4. KU Volleyball is Dancing

The Lady Hawks are playing on into the post season. They finished their season 22-7 and will play the Missouri Tigers in the first round of the national tournament on Friday, December 1st, at 6 p.m. KU Volleyball made the Final Four two years ago. They will have a difficult road if they wish to do so again this year. Best of luck to you ladies and we are pulling for you!

Landen Fields is a contributor for Rock Chalk Blog. You can check out his archive here.