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Photo by Ryan Landreth on March 3, 2015.
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Oubre Lifts Jayhawks Over TCU in Big 12 Tournament

Dylan King

“We’re always happy with a win but it was an ugly win in our eyes.” – Frank Mason, January 28th after playing at TCU.

This game against the Horned Frogs was not any different.

Kansas was once again without Perry Ellis (knee) and Cliff Alexander (eligibility). The question on the mind of every Jayhawk fan asked which of KU’s 3 big men would step up and replace the production of Ellis? Would it be Jamari Traylor, Landen Lucas, or Hunter Mickelson? As it turned out, the answer was none of the above.

After the three available big men got into foul trouble early in the game, Bill Self went to a smaller lineup and played Kelly Oubre at power forward.

The Jayhawks would end up needing a career night from the talented freshman Oubre to advance to the next round of the Big 12 tournament.

The game was back-and-forth with both teams exchanging the lead for most of the first half until Kansas took a seven-point lead into halftime, up 33-26. That would be the largest lead of the game for either team.

TCU came out of halftime and scored 6 straight points, cutting the Kansas lead to 33-32.

Throughout the entire game it was hard for either team to get momentum, as the referees were constantly interjecting; both teams combined for a total of 46 fouls.

Just like previous times this season KU and TCU have matched up, the Horned Frogs put up a fight and took this game down to the wire.

Kelly Oubre went on a rampage in the second half, scoring 15 of KU’s final 21 points and setting a new career-high of 25 points.

The game wasn’t pretty, but the Jayhawks managed to survive and advance to the next round of the tournament.

NOTES: 

  • Oubre: 25 points, 6 rebounds, 3 steals, 2 blocks, and 15-19 on free throws.
  • Lucas: 13 points on 6-7 shooting, 7 rebounds and 3 blocks. He has grown a substantial amount in his game in the last month. He’s not Cliff Alexander, but he’s making up for the loss more than we any of us expected him to do.
  • Selden: 7 points, 4 rebounds, 2 steals, and a team-high 4 turnovers.
  • Mason: 6 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and 3 steals. He played 37 minutes. He’s played 1,078 minutes this year, 120 more than any other Jayhawk.
  • Traylor: 6 points, 3 blocks.
  • KU was out-rebounded by TCU twice this year, but on Thursday, they had a 34-28 advantage. Pretty impressive to do against a solid rebounding team without your top two board-getters.
  • TCU rebounded just eight of their misses after snagging 38 offensive boards in the first two meetings.
  • Kansas went yet another game without hitting a three pointer, finishing 0-8 from behind the arc.
  • Kansas is now 6 of their last FIFTY–FIVE (!!!) from three. That’s an absurd cold streak. It’s also 11%. Six made threes in KU’s last 189 game minutes.
  • Kelly Oubre has made 30 free throws since the last time Brannen Greene or Wayne Selden made a three.
  • Greene has missed 14 consecutive threes. Selden has missed 12 straight. Oubre is 1 for his last 10. This can’t continue much longer, can it?
  • The crazy stat that still is true: Since 2006, Kansas is 15-0 when making either zero or one three-pointer.
  • Jamari Traylor and Hunter Mickelson had a hard time dealing with foul trouble, as they combined for just 8 points and 3 rebounds in only 28 minutes.
  • As a big Svi fan, it was good to see him make a bucket again. His one make in this game matched his output in the last 5 games.
  • These new March uniforms are so bad. I may start a petition to bring back the throwbacks KU wore against Texas for the rest of the year.

                                                                        

TWEETS:

Next up: Big 12 Tournament in Kansas City: Friday vs. Baylor, 6:00 p.m.

Dylan King

Staff writer for Rock Chalk Blog. http://twitter.com/_DK22

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