My thoughts around the numbers:
Josh Scott and Wes Gordon are going to have their work cut-out as interior defense is going to be key in this game. Kansas shoots 53.5% of their shots at the rim (7[SUP]th[/SUP] best in the NCAA), that is over 15% higher than the NCAA average of 38.3%. When you think of a team that shoots and scores a lot at the rim you’d think that’d equate to a team that gets a lot of transition buckets. But that isn’t Kansas, only 25.5% of their initial FGA come in transition, so that means that Kansas is getting a lot of good looks at the rim within their half-court offense, which means that the guards are going to have to stop dribble penetration and interior defense is going to have to be on point.
KU doesn’t exactly shoot lights out, their 3pt and FT% are both well below average. They do get to the line at a very good rate but only convert on 67.3% of their FT’s. In their lone loss of the year to eventual Battle of Atlantis champion Villanova, KU was only able to convert on 2 of 11 three-point shots and shot 60% from the FT line going 15-25. This seems to be the blue print to beat KU, protect the paint, make them shoot three’s and hope they continue their poor free throw shooting.
I’ve talked about the value of a blocked shot before and I’m going to again. KU blocks a lot of shots, they block 15.3% of shots (27[SUP]th[/SUP] best) but only 52.6% of those blocks result in a change in possession, as KU’s opponents grab 47.4% of the offensive rebounds after a block. There is obviously the intimidation factor to consider that’s clearly unquantifiable, but CU only blocks 9.8% of shots, but 63.3% of those blocks result in a change of possession. As anyone knows that watched the CSU game the other night, Wes and Josh do a good job of blocking a shot and actually recovering it and changing the possession as a result. This is going to be something to watch, will KU’s inevitable blocks result in a change of possession or just a guy flexing his muscles trying to look tough?
Transition, transition, transition. Once again I’m going to talk about something I frequently talk about. Transition play is the key factor in CU’s success and it’s one of the reasons CU beat CSU. Mayor went into beast mode attacking in transition until somebody stopped him. He went 4-4 in transition making two at the rim, one mid-range J and one three. I like this Mayor, he’s one I can get behind, I understand why he wants to show that he can get the ball to the right guys and be that “true” point guard. We all get that you can drive and get the defense to collapse on you and you have the ability to find the open outside shooter, you’ve proven that time and time again, but this isn’t the NBA. CU doesn’t have multiple guys that can shoot 40+% from three. CU needs you to be attack mode Spencer. So what if you get a couple swatted away, good things happen when you take it to the rack and it all begins with transition offense. Kansas does a good job of limiting transition opportunities, they only allow opponents to take 19.4% of their initial field goal attempts in transition while CU averages 36.9% (18[SUP]th[/SUP] best) of their initial field goal attempts to come in transition. So this is going to key, Spencer, Jaron and Ski need to get out in transition and try to convert in transition because Kansas has one of the best overall defensive efficiencies in the country.
A few other points:
The freshman need to show up, Hopkins showed up in crunch time, but CU can’t rely on them not showing up for 35 minutes against a team like Kansas
This is Kansas’ first true road game; they’ve played a few neutral court games but they haven’t been in hostile territory……yet
