Kansas Jayhawks hope this player will shake a shooting slump Friday night against Yale
Johnny Furphy’s excused week-long absence covering five practices and one game means the No. 2-ranked Kansas Jayhawks will have just three scholarship players available for reserve duty in Friday’s nonconference men’s basketball clash against Yale.
KU has three candidates to assume Australia native Furphy’s 13.3 minutes in the game that tips off at 7 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse: guards Nick Timberlake and Jamari McDowell and forward Parker Braun.
“Hopefully somebody will step in and have a big night,” KU coach Bill Self said at a Thursday news conference.
Yale enters Friday’s game with a 7-5 record. KU is 10-1.
“It may give a couple guys a little bit more of an opportunity,” Self said. “For the most part those positions have been pretty much interchangeable since probably the first of the month.”
One of the Jayhawks’ available bench players, Timberlake, will be trying to shake a lengthy shooting slump. He hit 92 of 221 three-pointers (41.6%) at Towson last season. This season he’s made just 4 of 22 in his past 10 games after converting 3 of 4 shots from beyond the arc in KU’s season opener against North Carolina Central.
He’s 7-of-26 overall at KU for 26.9%.
“He had a real good practice yesterday knocking down a lot of key open shots that he’s usually made,” KU junior forward KJ Adams said. “Getting there, getting more comfortable with his play could help (KU’s team). He’s going to have a big role in our year. Getting him more comfortable is going to help us a lot.”
Self was encouraged by Timberlake’s 3-point shooting at practice Wednesday.
“It’s a different looking team when you make two out of three when you are open,” Self said. “He was aggressive. Hopefully he’ll get some confidence through practice this week and hopefully he’ll play better and do what he does and (show) why we recruited him.
“I’ll be honest with you,” Self added. “We didn’t exactly recruit Nick because he was going to be a defensive stopper, but we did recruit him because he could get the ball in the basket. He hasn’t done that yet with consistency. We know he’s got that in him. It’ll happen. We’re hopeful it’ll happen sooner rather than not.”
The 6-foot-4, 195-pound Timberlake was scoreless (0 for 2 from 3-point range) with one assist and one rebound in Saturday’s 75-71 win at Indiana. He played six minutes.
“I think outwardly he’s handling it perfect. Inwardly he’s got to be, ‘What’s going on?’’’ Self said. “Look at the Indiana game. It’s such a small sample size because he did some good things. But you miss two wide-open ones, miss a front end … is he better defensively if he’s not scoring the ball than what somebody else would be?
“It’s unfair for bench guys to have a shorter rope, so to speak, as far as making mistakes. That’s the reality in which we live in.”
Freshman guard McDowell hit 1 of 2 three-pointers, good for three points with one assist and one turnover, in eight minutes at Indiana. Senior forward Braun had two points in two minutes versus the Hoosiers.
Asked about McDowell on Thursday, Self said: ‘I think Jamari is doing well. I know when it comes down to it we’ve got to shoot the ball with more frequency and a better percentage. Jamari can add to that, but that’s not what he does like a Furphy or Timberlake can do. We need to get those (bench) guys playing with the same confidence Jamari is playing with right now.”
Self has said Furphy, who headed back to Australia Sunday to fulfill a “family commitment,” would return to Lawrence after the team’s Christmas break on Dec. 26.
The Jayhawk players will head to their hometowns for the holiday on Saturday and return for a Tuesday night practice.
Yale is riding a two-game win streak. The Bulldogs played Gonzaga tough, losing 86-71 on Nov. 10 in Spokane, Washington.
“Yale is a tough out,” Self said. “They’ve got a 7-foot center (soph Danny Wolf) who is 12-for-25 from 3 for the year. He can score, pass like (KU’s) Hunter (Dickinson). They have guards who can shoot it.”
Yale as a team has hit 82 of 235 three-pointers for 34.9%.
“It’s a pretty bright team too, pretty smart to say the least, for obvious reasons,” Self noted. “They’ll be hard to guard and they really move the ball. If you are a half step behind you are way behind when you guard these guys. They’ve got a good program. They’ve had a good program for years.”
Adams, who will head to Austin, Texas on Saturday for the Christmas holiday, said KU will be motivated Friday.
“Don’t fall asleep. Take every team like it’s the best team we’re going to play,” Adams said of the Jayhawks’ keys to victory. “You see a lot of high-ranked teams losing right now. We’ve got to make sure we don’t just check out.
“Stay focused. A lot of people will be excited to see their families, see everybody during Christmas break. We have to make sure we leave the right way and don’t have a bad taste in our mouth for Christmas.”
