Saturday, December 15, 2007
KANSAS CITY, Mo.—The scene at the Sprint Center would have made for a poor horror movie because Kansas didn’t give Ohio time to be frightened in an 88-51 victory. Instead, the Jayhawks cut straight to business and exterminated the Bobcats like an assassin.
After Kansas junior guard Mario Chalmers gently swiped the ball away from him early in the first half, Ohio guard Bubba Walther helplessly fell to the floor and watched as Chalmers converted on an easy lay-up. Before long, the Bobcat bench looked like a hospital waiting room as all the players sat with their heads tilted straight down.
This is what the Jayhawks can do to any opponent. This is what the Jayhawks should do to every opponent.
“The last thing you want is for a team to get comfortable and think they can play with us,” senior guard Russell Robinson said. “So you try to knock that out right from the get-go.”
Ten games into the season and not many teams have proven they can play with the Jayhawks – especially not the last two. Kansas put DePaul away early last Saturday with a 24-1 run in the middle of the first half. A week later, the Jayhawks relied on a similar 24-2 run to demoralize the Bobcats.
What does this mean for Kansas? A lot. Ohio is not a bad team. It beat Maryland at the Comcast Center last week and Kansas coach Bill Self said Ohio forward Leon Williams was good enough to play for any team in the country.
Up to this point of the season, the Jayhawks have been like a storm waiting to develop. There’s been the occasional omen that it’s brewing, such as Brandon Rush returning from knee surgery or Chalmers and Robinson combining for nine steals in a game. But Saturday’s game showed that not even the snuggest of shelters could protect someone from this type of lightning.
Everything coalesced for Kansas. Rush made his first start of the season and scored eight points in just more than three minutes to get the Jayhawks rolling. Chalmers prodded the ball away from the Bobcat guards four times. Robinson’s passing was crisp and he wound up with 11 assists.
With the game well out of hand during the second half, the court turned into a playground for Kansas. Chalmers fired and made shots from wherever he wanted and finished with 17 points. Sophomore forward Darrell Arthur, senior forward Darnell Jackson and senior center Sasha Kaun all added alley-oops to the mix. Even freshman center Cole Aldrich threw down two gruesome slams.
“When you look at their second five, that team would win most conferences in the country,” Ohio coach Tim O’Shea said. “You get no relief when they go to the bench. You wait for them to bring the subs in and they bring in Aldrich, a McDonald’s All American.”
The Jayhawks only have two semi-tough games left on the non-conference schedule, road trips to play Georgia Tech and Boston College. With the genuine possibility of an undefeated record heading into conference play, this Kansas storm is about to spread across the rest of the country.
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