‘Finally felt like the kid at Towson’: How Kansas’ Timberlake earned a confidence-boost
The KU men’s basketball team’s addition of former Towson guard Nick Timberlake via the transfer portal this past offseason looked like a shrewd pickup that added another shooting threat to an already potent lineup.
After all, Timberlake had averaged 17.7 points per game and shot 45.5% (41.6% from 3-point range) at Towson.
With the Jayhawks, however, it’s been a different story. The player Kansas coach Bill Self envisioned as a sharpshooter had struggled to simply find the net.
Timberlake entered Friday night’s game against Yale averaging just 3.2 points. And maybe that provided a clean slate.
Coming off the bench, the graduate-transfer matched his season-high with 13 points in a season-most 29 minutes as the Jayhawks beat their guests 75-60 at Allen Fieldhouse.
Both Timberlake and Self attributed Timberlake’s strong night to how well he’d performed during practices this week, with Self even calling his shooting “unbelievable.”
“I finally felt good,” Timberlake. “I had a great week of practice ... and it just carried over.
“I’ve been thinking way too much during the whole year and finally felt like the kid at Towson who Coach Self recruited here.”
Shooting 5-for-10 from the floor overall, Timberlake also matched his season-high beyong the arc, sinking 3 of 7.
“Tonight, he’s 3-for-7, and we’re happy that it was 3-for-7, but that’s just average,” Self said. “I was hoping he could get on a roll and make three or four in a row, but he looked like a player tonight and he also looked athletic.”
Timberlake’s improved performance extended was evident on both ends of the court Friday night. His second of two steals resulted in his third 3-pointer with just under three minutes to play in the game.
The helped the Jayhawks put some distance between themselves and the visiting Bulldogs after trailing by as many as 11 points at one point in the game.
“It’s all just confidence,” Timberlake said of his playmaking Friday “I just felt great out there today.”
Teammate Kevin McCullar Jr. might have been the greatest beneficiary of Timberlake’s playmaking ability. McCullar scored a career-high 34 points and Timberlake assisted on his 3-pointer that put the Jayhawks up 62-47.
“He’s been working his tail off every day, staying late, getting in extra shots,” McCullar said of Timberlake. “Everybody in the country knows he’s a great shooter, but we’ve been trying to push him on other aspects of his game, as you can see tonight on the defensive end. He was out there causing havoc, doing the little things and the ball went in the hole tonight for him.
“We’re going to need that if we want to make a run at this thing, and you know that’s what he was brought here to do.”
The clock is winding down on KU’s nonconference schedule now. The Jayhawks will next face the Wichita State Shockers on Dec. 30 at Kansas City’s T-Mobile Center. After that, they hope to take the Big 12 Conference by the horns.
Timberlake knows that confidence will come in handy once league play begins.
“It’s just getting better every day,” he said of his confidence level. “That’s how we look at it. It was my night tonight. It might be someone else’s the next night, but staying consistent with how I play definitely helps a lot just confidence wise going into conference play, just knowing how tough the Big 12 is.”
This story was originally published December 22, 2023 at 11:31 PM.
