At Kansas, Success Due to Team Before Self

LAWRENCE, Kans. – The signs have been there all season that the Kansas Jayhawks, who were supposedly in a reloading year, are good.

Scratch that.

These Jayhawks are special. Perhaps Final Four special.

In short order, Bill Self has turned his latest collection of star players into a cohesive team. Ask Missouri. Monday, the second-ranked Jayhawks withstood a ferocious start by the 19th-ranked Tigers before methodically, and within a selfless team-first framework, rallying for a 103-86 win at Allen Fieldhouse.

Marcus Morris was his usual dominant self in the second half, but what was most impressive were the points in production that came from everywhere else. Mario Little and a wounded Travis Releford came off the bench to combine for 27 points and 11-of-14 shooting from the field and 5-of-5 shooting from 3-point range.

In all, Kansas had five players score in double figures, while eight of the nine Jayhawks who logged minutes score at least eight points. Markieff Morris made big plays inside that got Missouri's bigs into foul trouble in the second half. Then quality production also came from Brady Morningstar, Tyrel Reed, and Thomas Robinson. It was easy to miss that freshman sensation Josh Selby was sitting on the bench in street clothes and wearing a boot.

That's precisely the definition of a team effort, and the reason the Jayhawks pulled away in the second half.

"I like that they are balanced and share the ball," said Self, whose team improved to 23-1 and 8-1 in the Big 12 with Monday night's victory. "This team is not a great passing team individually but because we have Marcus and Markieff (Morris), who are so advanced skill-set wise, we give the appearance of being a team that can really pass it.

"I really like our unselfishness and guys are really starting to find their roles. Look at what Brady (Morningstar) has done the last two weeks. He can make a shot or he can be a ball mover and he's given other guys a chance to make plays."

Make plays is exactly what the Jayhawks did Monday night. Robinson had a thunderous dunk and Little put up a series of 3-pointers that served notice that the second half would be nothing like the first for the Tigers.

The Tigers played 10 players, but they might as well had been playing short-handed. Their starting five might have been able to play with Kansas' starting five but the Tigers had no answer for the Jayhawks' superior depth. Kansas' bench outscored theirs 36-16.

"You look at the difference in the game and it was the sixth, seventh and eighth man going 14-of-17 from the field," Self said. "I don't think there are a lot of teams that have that luxury. Of course Mario (Little) is going to give himself a chance to score because he is going to clip it off as soon as he touches it usually. Tonight he was feeling it and of course he bailed us out."

There was no one more pleased than Marcus Morris, who overcame a slow start in which Little and the rest of the reserves held it down in the first half while their leading scorer got his act together.

"These guys backed me up and they continued what they did in the first-half and brought it the second-half," said Marcus Morris, who managed just five points in the first half yet KU went into halftime holding a 46-42 lead. "When your bench is playing like that, with our depth, it is hard for teams to keep us from scoring."

And that could only bode well for the Jayhawks as they reach the midway point in the conference season and the postseason comes into view. At this point, Kansas is looking like a team that is positioned to go far in the tournament.

The Jayhawks defend and rebound fairly well, but most important is they are efficient offensively. The nation's leading field goal percentage team at 52 percent, they shot nearly 61 percent against the Tigers. During the second half that was defined by big runs, Kansas knocked down 67 percent of its shots from the field.

Playing like that against a pressure defense like the one the Tigers play can carry the Jayhawks far.

"You have to give credit to Kansas; they are a really good team," said Missouri forward Laurence Bower. "I did not think that we played the best defense that we knew we could have played. We gave up 103 points and that is very unlike us."