The game is finally here, one of the biggest Sunflower Showdown games in the recent history of the series. KU had a brief respite with 3 straight wins after their loss in Manhattan, but that occurred against arguably the 3 worst teams in the league. Then last night the Hawks went down and got destroyed by perhaps the only Big 12 team playing better than K-State at Texas Tech. KU probably hasn't had a "backs against the wall" game this late in the year since 2015, when K-State beat them on February 23rd and then the Hawks lost the final regular season game to Oklahoma, but they still finished 1st in the league by 1 game. They also lost their last game against Baylor in 2013 which allowed K-Sate to tie for the league lead. Before that you have to go back to 2005 when KU lost 3 of 5 to end the year, including at home to ISU, but again finished 1 game up in the standings. That Iowa State loss on February 19th that season is one of 2 home losses after February 1st (they also lost to aTm on Feb 3rd, 2007) in their last 17 seasons. Of course, this KU team is 15-0 at home and AFH is still one of the toughest places to play in the country.
By the metrics, KU is what their record shows; a middle of the pack Big 12 team. Their defense is solid, led by a high 2PT% defense and low FT rate, but they are pretty pedestrian at the other factors. Their offense features the best eFG% in the Big 12, led by a high 2PT%, but they rank only #6 in efficiency. They are awful at taking care of the ball and a poor rebounding team.
So the key question for tomorrow becomes what is the difference between this KU team at home and on the road in Big 12 play?
As you can see, they are a much more efficient team at home both on offense and defense. The most notable differences on offense are a TO rate that is 8% better and shooting 5% better on 2s. That leads to a significant improvement in offensive efficiency. Meanwhile, the defensive efficiency gap is similar, led by opponents shooting 9% worse on average behind the arc in AFH. KU also forces more TOs and (no surprise) opponents get to the FT line at a much lower rate. Rebounding for both offense and defense is pretty similar.
The major players for KU haven't changed much and Garrett's return should help them. Lawson is still their best player, but the key may be Dotson. He played very good in their 3 wins and was starting to look like the lead guard that Self's best teams have always had, but then he was pretty bad last night vs Tech.
The notable change from when we played them the first time is Self switching back to playing 2 bigs most of the time instead of the smaller line up that he featured before Garrett was injured and Vick went on vacation. Now KU plays 2 bigs over 70% of the time with some combination of Lawson, McCormack, and Lightfoot. If you consider the younger Lawson another big, that percentage goes up even more. When they came to Manhattan, they were playing small with more than 2/3 of their line ups. The nice thing about our line up is that we can defend either group, though the loss of Carti could have an impact on depth. We'll have to see if the minutes played by a bunch of guys against OSU has any positive impact, particularly the bigs starting with Trice.
This is going to be a really tough game dictated by the same keys we saw a couple weeks ago; turning KU over, staying even on 3s, and not getting destroyed on 2s. K-State is still the better rebounding team, but the gap between the two teams has closed a bit with Self playing bigger. It will be very interesting to see if we can pressure and force TOs in AFH; only WVU forced a TO rate over 19% there in league play, but they were so bad everywhere else it didn't matter. The Cats have shot the ball well lately, with only 1 game below 35% from 3 in our last 7. Also, the weakest parts of K-State's defense are 2PT% and FT rate, which could play right into KU's hands.
All that said, I think this senior class is going "all in" on this game. We've played well in AFH the last 2 seasons; I can see the combination of Barry, Kam, and Dean willing us to a win and K-State has simply been the absolute best road team in the league. KU has had plenty of consistent aspects of their program fall by the way side this season and this will be another one; a K-State season sweep.
Cats 74 - Hawks 68
By the metrics, KU is what their record shows; a middle of the pack Big 12 team. Their defense is solid, led by a high 2PT% defense and low FT rate, but they are pretty pedestrian at the other factors. Their offense features the best eFG% in the Big 12, led by a high 2PT%, but they rank only #6 in efficiency. They are awful at taking care of the ball and a poor rebounding team.
So the key question for tomorrow becomes what is the difference between this KU team at home and on the road in Big 12 play?
As you can see, they are a much more efficient team at home both on offense and defense. The most notable differences on offense are a TO rate that is 8% better and shooting 5% better on 2s. That leads to a significant improvement in offensive efficiency. Meanwhile, the defensive efficiency gap is similar, led by opponents shooting 9% worse on average behind the arc in AFH. KU also forces more TOs and (no surprise) opponents get to the FT line at a much lower rate. Rebounding for both offense and defense is pretty similar.
The major players for KU haven't changed much and Garrett's return should help them. Lawson is still their best player, but the key may be Dotson. He played very good in their 3 wins and was starting to look like the lead guard that Self's best teams have always had, but then he was pretty bad last night vs Tech.
The notable change from when we played them the first time is Self switching back to playing 2 bigs most of the time instead of the smaller line up that he featured before Garrett was injured and Vick went on vacation. Now KU plays 2 bigs over 70% of the time with some combination of Lawson, McCormack, and Lightfoot. If you consider the younger Lawson another big, that percentage goes up even more. When they came to Manhattan, they were playing small with more than 2/3 of their line ups. The nice thing about our line up is that we can defend either group, though the loss of Carti could have an impact on depth. We'll have to see if the minutes played by a bunch of guys against OSU has any positive impact, particularly the bigs starting with Trice.
This is going to be a really tough game dictated by the same keys we saw a couple weeks ago; turning KU over, staying even on 3s, and not getting destroyed on 2s. K-State is still the better rebounding team, but the gap between the two teams has closed a bit with Self playing bigger. It will be very interesting to see if we can pressure and force TOs in AFH; only WVU forced a TO rate over 19% there in league play, but they were so bad everywhere else it didn't matter. The Cats have shot the ball well lately, with only 1 game below 35% from 3 in our last 7. Also, the weakest parts of K-State's defense are 2PT% and FT rate, which could play right into KU's hands.
All that said, I think this senior class is going "all in" on this game. We've played well in AFH the last 2 seasons; I can see the combination of Barry, Kam, and Dean willing us to a win and K-State has simply been the absolute best road team in the league. KU has had plenty of consistent aspects of their program fall by the way side this season and this will be another one; a K-State season sweep.
Cats 74 - Hawks 68
