Five observations from KU’s exhibition win over Emporia State
Here are five observations from Kansas basketball’s 93-55 exhibition victory over Emporia State on Thursday.
1. Kansas coach Bill Self said he felt his team played a good first 5-7 minutes, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone what he specifically was talking about:
Defense.
“We couldn’t run any offense,” Emporia State coach Craig Doty said of his team’s start, “because we couldn’t get a catch.”
One huge positive Thursday night for KU was the ball pressure early, and you can see it here on this possession after the first media timeout.
Devon Dotson is pesky all the way up the floor. Dedric Lawson is denying a pass to his man near midcourt. And Lagerald Vick — he has been prone to defense lapses in the past — is focused in while chasing his man through two screens to deny another pass.
KU’s defense will naturally improve this season with added rebounding and rim protection. But if the Jayhawks can add some pressure like this? The defensive ceiling gets even higher.
2. Saw a small detail worth pointing out at this point in the season.
Self coaches his guards to stand on the court before out-of-bounds plays while they’re getting his play call. Charlie Moore shows us an example of that here.
There’s a simple reason for that: If a guard is on the court, there’s no way an official can hand him the basketball to start the play. This allows both the guard and his teammates plenty of time to get set up.
It also shows that coaching takes many forms, even when it comes to things like foot placement when looking to the bench for the next call.
3. Grimes — also in his first game — had an interesting sequence midway through the second half.
After missing a semi-contested three, he passed up an open one on the wing the next possession, trying to throw the ball inside while committing a turnover. A second after the play, Self motioned down the bench for a sub.
So was Self upset that Grimes passed up the shot, or messed up the pass?
“He definitely wants me to take every shot, open three that I have — even some that are contested,” Grimes said. “Because he knows I can shoot the ball pretty well. I’m just going to go out there and be as aggressive as I can.”
The message appeared to be received, as Grimes launched up this open NBA three — and hit it — in the game’s final minutes.
4. This wasn’t a regular-season game, but if it had been, some of the numbers Thursday would have been statistical outliers from last season.
For example, KU grabbed 20 of an available 35 offensive rebounds — a huge number, especially considering how little the Jayhawks went to the offensive glass last season. Another way to look at it: KU pulled down 57 percent of the available offensive rebounds, which was 11 percentage points better than its best mark from the 2017-18 season (against Texas Southern).
There was a negative stat too. KU turned it over on 29 percent of its possessions Thursday after going a whole season without posting a higher game total than 27 percent last year.
5. Self had an interesting wrinkle on one of his reliable baseline out of bounds plays Thursday.
In the past, he’s tried to get a post player a deep touch with this set play. This time, though, he ran the set for Grimes — a big guard — to get him a post-up opportunity.
It worked. Watch here as KU runs this play two years ago (for big man Carlton Bragg), then compare to Thursday, when Grimes is the one cutting across the lane.
“I posted littler guys up in high school. So it’s not like I’m not used to it or not comfortable doing that,” Grimes said. “So definitely running that cross screen on the baseline, I can post up a guy and get an easy bucket if we need to.”
Jesse Newell
Jesse Newell covers University of Kansas athletics for The Star.
This story was originally published October 25, 2018 at 11:11 PM.