Inside a Big Monday night for Kansas Jayhawks point guard Dajuan Harris vs. Iowa State
Senior point guard Dajuan Harris sensed some doubt in the minds of the 15,300 Kansas Jayhawks fans who gathered in Allen Fieldhouse for their team’s ESPN Big Monday men’s basketball game against No. 8-ranked Iowa State.
KU, which fell from No. 11 to No. 16 in the new AP Top 25 poll released Monday morning, rolled to a 69-52 victory over the Cyclones to close out the day.
“I don’t think some people believed in us coming into this game,” Harris said, “but we just put everything out the window, focused on us.”
Kansas (16-6, 7-4 Big 12) melted down Saturday, blowing a 21-point lead in an 81-70 loss at Baylor. The previous Saturday, KU squandered six-point leads both down the stretch in regulation and during the first overtime of what became a 92-86 double-OT loss to the Houston at Allen Fieldhouse.
“They probably didn’t think we were going to win this game out there, after blowing games we’ve been blowing,” Harris said of some of the Jayhawk faithful. “We had no distractions after yesterday’s practice.
“We just came in, stayed level-headed and took care of business on the defensive end. We got better yesterday at practice. I think, yes, it started with yesterday’s practice. The defense showed today.”
After a short but spirited practice Sunday, KU and its defense were on target Monday, holding ISU guards Tamin Lipsey, Curtis Jones and Keshon Gilbert to a combined 29 points on miserable 3-of-18 three-point shooting. As a team, ISU hit 19 of 62 shots for 30.6%.
The same KU team that was torched for 60 points in the second half of Saturday’s loss at Baylor held the visiting Cyclones to 52 points, the lowest point total KU’s allowed an AP Top 10 team since Feb. 9, 1982 (42, against then-No. 4-ranked Missouri).
KU surrendered just 19 points in the first half Monday, the lowest point total in a half allowed to an AP Top 10 team by KU since at least the 1996-97 season. Iowa State had not been held under 20 in a half this season.
The Cyclones’ 19 opening-half points marked the fewest for ISU since a Dec. 12, 2021 game against Jackson State (also 19 points).
“We came in yesterday,” said Harris, who scored 12 points with four rebounds, four assists, two turnovers and a steal in 35 minutes. “We practiced for what Coach told us was 45 minutes, but it felt like an hour (and) 15 minutes.”
Senior KU guard Zeke Mayo hit five 3-pointers in six tries Monday for a game-high 17 points.
“We went over plays,” Harris said of the team’s Sunday practice routine, “and then at the end of practice we played defense for 15, 20 minutes. I think it started from there. We had a lot of energy yesterday and we just wanted to come back and win this game for the fans, too, because we let them down a couple games in Allen (losses to West Virginia and Houston).”
One play by Harris seemed to perfectly illustrate KU’s effort against the Cyclones (17-5, 7-4), who have now lost three in a row.
With KU up 31-19, Harris went into a slide to swipe the ball from ISU’s Gilbert just past halfcourt. Harris passed over to teammate Hunter Dickinson, who gave the ball to David (Diggy) Coit.
Coit launched a high, deep lob to forward KJ Adams, who flushed home a thunderous dunk on the other end to give KU a 33-19 advantage right before halftime.
“I thought they were going to call traveling,” Harris said with a smile, thinking his slide into the basketball might be deemed a turnover. “I just saw the ball. It was a loose ball.
“Usually when we play Iowa State, it’s always whoever’s the first one to go on the floor. And I just wanted to make a play, get on the floor. The ball was rolling and I didn’t want it to go out of bounds so I dove and made a play. That’s all.”
KU coach Bill Self gave high marks to his team’s effort.
“I thought defensively,” the coach said, “our first-shot defense was pretty good the first half and we didn’t rebound the ball like I thought we could have, but we really guarded them and we got them into the last 10 seconds of the shot clock. We did a great job on their big three (Lipsey, Jones, Gilbert), especially.”
Self then said he had a suggested “storyline” for reporters covering the game.
“Guys … you guys can do it however you want to,” he said. “The storyline, you could say defense or whatever. But the storyline to me on tonight is how the guys responded after a really crappy last 48 hours. I’m really proud of them.”
Self said his team focused on not letting the defeat in Waco turn into back-to-back losses.
“I mean we talked about how crappy we were defensively, but you can’t be that bad defensively unless there’s some underlying issues on why we’re bad defensively,” he said. “So, I mean, it wasn’t all because of ball-screens.
“So (at practice), we talked about a mindset of just how much we could trust each other and how much do we enjoy playing with each other and the different pressures that we feel playing here, as opposed to maybe some other people playing at other places.
“We talk like that, but I don’t think the emphasis was defense. I think the emphasis was, ‘If our heads are right and we play with freedom, we can look pretty good at times.’ And that was what happened tonight.”
KU will next meet Kansas State at 1 p.m. Saturday at Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan.
