KU stops A&M in Big 12/SEC Challenge; Azubuike shoots no free throws in 22 minutes

Seven-footer Udoka Azubuike marched out of the locker room to the basket on the south end of James Naismith Court early, a good hour and a half before the start of Saturday’s Big 12/SEC Challenge game against Texas A&M.

He hoisted foul shot after foul shot, never straying far from the free-throw line during warmup drills that obviously focused on the 280-pound sophomore improving on his 5 of 19 performance the past two games.

What do you know … after all that work, Azubuike was not awarded one free throw in KU’s 79-68 victory over the Aggies at Allen Fieldhouse.

Not one.

“Disappointed might be a stretch,” KU coach Bill Self said, asked his reaction to not being able to gauge whether there has been improvement in Azubuike’s free-throw shooting since crunch time of Tuesday’s loss at Oklahoma — when the Delta, Nigeria, native missed six late free throws after fouls committed on purpose by the Sooners.

“I was certainly looking forward to him having that opportunity. We shot a lot of free throws this week,” Self added.

Self, who had previously said Azubuike would not make radical changes to his free-throw form until the offseason, acknowledged there has been tinkering with the big man’s technique the past 48 hours.

“We worked on a lot of things,” Self said after watching Azubuike score eight points with six rebounds and four blocks in his 22-minute stint against the Aggies (13-8). KU improved to 17-4.

“The thing about it (Azubuike’s new form) is it actually looks pretty good,” Self added. “It’s a little bit different under pressure. It takes a lot of discipline not to revert back to what you know. He’s been shooting it that way for a lot of years. We tried to change it in 48 hours.

“It’s not totally changed. It’s not going to be totally revamped until the offseason. It’s something he’s got to address. His technique was certainly better and more sound I think since the OU game.”

Azubuike, whose next chance to possibly combat a “Poke-A-Doke” strategy is Monday’s 8 p.m. contest at Kansas State, was removed from Saturday’s game by Self with 1:18 left and KU leading 78-68.

At that point, the Jayhawks had entered the bonus and Self figured A&M would start fouling Azubuike on purpose at that point.

“We tried to do that at the end there a couple of times, (but) our big didn’t foul him. That was part of the conversation coming out of the time out (with 2:05 left and KU up, 78-68),” A&M coach Billy Kennedy said of his players failing to employ a strategy of hacking Azubuike.

“They (Jayhawks) did a good job of not letting him get it. Kansas didn’t run anything to get him the ball down the stretch and we talked about that in the huddle. Our big kid went after the ball one time and tried to foul him and they didn’t call it.”

Kennedy said the Aggies were not prepared to foul Azubuike when he was not involved directly in a play.

“That’s a tough play to make. I know we probably would have tried it if we were in … I don’t want to say we were in a desperate situation … It’s something to think about. It’s not something we normally would do, obviously,” Kennedy said.

Self was miffed at Azubuike for being called for a technical foul after his dunk gave KU a 52-35 lead with 17:31 left. A&M hit one of two free throws and scored on the ensuing possession to cut the gap to 52-38.

A&M, which trailed by 18 points at halftime, never crept closer than 10 down the stretch. Still, Self didn’t like the ’T.’

“I thought the technical totally took him out of everything. It was a ridiculous technical on his part,” Self said. “The first half he protects the rim, gets four blocks, six rebounds. The second half, 12 minutes, no blocked shots, no rebounds.

“I didn’t think he was any factor the second half. Udoka went brain dead a little bit. I was disappointed in that to be real honest with you. I think those (staring at an opponent after the slam) are selfish plays when you do something that hurts your team like that. He knew that was a personal foul and knew he’d have to sit the next 5, 6 minutes and that’s obviously when we didn’t play very well.”

As far as the deciding factors in this Big 12/SEC Challenge game, senior Svi Mykhailiuk scored 24 points (17 in the first half) on 8-of-15 shooting (4 of 8 threes), and Malik Newman added 15 points with seven rebounds as the Jayhawks improved to 21-1 all-time against the Aggies, who played in the Big 12 for 16 seasons.

Lagerald Vick scored 10 points for KU, while Marcus Garrett had nine points on 4-of-4 shooting with two steals in 17 minutes. Garrett had a pair of driving layups and hit a three.

“Other than Svi, he was the best player in the game,” Self said of Garrett. “He did some things from a defensive standpoint that were probably better than what our other perimeter defenders did. I thought he played great. It’s the best game he’s had in a long time.”

Tyler Davis scored 18 points and grabbed nine rebounds, and Robert Williams and T.J. Starks had 11 points apiece for A&M, which outrebounded KU 40-33. KU knocked down 12 threes in 26 tries, compared to A&M’s 5 of 18.

“Like Coach says, speed beats size,” said KU soph Newman, who hit two three-pointers. Mykhailiuk led the way with four.

“That’s what we tried to convince them of,” Self noted. “Obviously we could never get as big as them (three starters over 6-9). When you are not very big you need to be quicker. That old adage, ‘We are not very big but we sure are slow,’ that doesn’t usually win you a lot of games, so we wanted to be quicker.

“We were fast and aggressive the first half. In the second half we just puttered around and tried to get through the game.”

No. 5 Kansas 79, Texas A&M 68

This story was originally published January 27, 2018 at 5:46 PM with the headline "KU stops A&M in Big 12/SEC Challenge; Azubuike shoots no free throws in 22 minutes."