Moments That Popped: No. 14 Kansas 104, Kansas State 85

The 14th-ranked Jayhawks were favored by double digits over an outclassed Kansas State team and most of the game reflected why.

Kansas didn't play its best. Not by a long shot. And the Wildcats tried to fight. For a while.

In the end, though, the Jayhawks had way too much in this Sunflower Showdown and rolled to an easy 104-85 victory at Allen Fieldhouse, marking the most points scored by a Kansas team in the in-state rivalry between these two.

The Jayhawks have now won every home, regular season finale since the 1983-84 season, spanning 43 consecutive wins. And they now lead the all-time series with K-State, 205-97.

Saturday's outcome was never in doubt. Kansas cruised through without exerting too much effort and energy and certainly without much stress and KU coach Bill Self gave extended minutes to a bench that has been utilized little and produced even less for much of the season.

Next up, KU (22-9 overall, 12-6 Big 12) will await the final bracket in next week's Big 12 tournament to find out who and when they'll play next. KU is guaranteed one of the top four seeds and a double-bye in the tournament. So, they'll open sometime Thursday.

If Texas Tech beats BYU tonight, KU will be the 4 seed and play the first game of the day on Thursday. If BYU wins, KU will jump into the No. 3 spot and play the final game of the day on Thursday.

Here's a look back at some Saturday's action from Allen Fieldhouse, which ended with KU coach Bill Self reminding the fans that remained in the building that they have shown they have enough to make a run — the defense to guard when they're turned up, the "best defensive player in America," in Flory Bidunga and a guy, in freshman Darryn Peterson, who can put a team on his back for 2 or 3 weeks and make a real run.

LIKES

• Ball screen offense - The Jayhawks weren't terribly disciplined with what they wanted and tried to do on offense on Saturday afternoon. But they did have some pretty good success getting the K-State defense in ball screen actions and scoring off of them. Some came on lobs. Some came off of drives to the middle. And the Cats really had no answer for either. This was by far the best area of the game for the Jayhawks on Saturday and they didn't have to do much more than that to take down the 'Cats. So, they didn't. Any time things got squirrelly, with rushed shots or bad shot selection, the Jayhawks — usually Council or Peterson — got right back into that ball-screen action and calmed things down.

• Rebounding edge - Rebounding of any kind has not really been a strength of this Kansas team, but the Jayhawks absolutely dominated the glass in this one. As they should've. KU out-rebounded K-State 45-28 for the game, including 12-7 on the offensive end. And the numbers were even more impressive in the first half, where the Jayhawks doubled up K-State on the boards (33-16) and had a 10-2 edge in offensive boards. Tre White led the way for KU in the rebounding department and he was aggressive on the boards from the jump. In fact, he got two rebounds on one possession, tipping a miss by a teammate off the backboard and then going to get his own tip for the easy lay-in.

• Senior Day celebration - This is always cool no matter who the seniors are in large part because of the traditions and pageantry surrounding it. From introductions and flowers to speeches and starting lineups, the Jayhawks do it right and do it better than anybody out there. KU started five seniors on Saturday — Melvin Council Jr., Wilder Evers, Justin Cross, Jayden Dawson and Tre White — and actually introduced six seniors during the starting lineup portion of the game, with Gee Ngala getting a mention, too. Ngala played and gave the first speech after the win. KU actually fared well with the seniors out there, playing with a mix of those six for the first 3:33 of the game and taking a 5-4 lead when those guys hit the bench. They all checked back in late, too, given the fact that Kansas built a 30-point lead to be able to send these guys out right. Evers, one of two 4-year guys in the bunch, made the most of it, scoring 5 points including a 3-pointer that pushed KU past 100 points on the night. Oh, and, yeah, there was more than a little barking, pregame, during the game and during the speeches when Melvin took the mic. He went wild on the mic, he brought his teammates and Coach Self out for a little bark session. And he did, in fact, kiss the Jayhawk at midcourt like he said he would.

• More Paul Mbiya chants - He came in late and got to work immediately, dunking on K-State defenders on two trips and then dishing a sweet pass through the lane to Darryn Peterson for a third. After that one, the KU student section broke out the "Paul M-biya" chants again, bringing a fun-loving element of joy to a game that was pretty sluggish for most of the day. Mbiya, the seldom-used freshman big man finished the day with 4 points, a rebound and an assist in 5 minutes on the floor.

• DP's last dance - You don't have to love how his entire season played out. And many don't. But Peterson continued to fight, even on nights when he didn't have it and especially when the scrutiny about him, his game and, most of all, his character, reached its highest. No one thinks he'll be back next season. In fact, no one ever thought he might. So, Saturday was it for the much-maligned freshman and future Top 3 NBA draft pick. And he went out with a bang, leading the team with 27 points on 10-of-15 shooting and adding 5 rebounds and 4 assists in 29+ minutes. I walked in with Peterson before the game and he was pumped for this one. He looked and me and said, "Senior Day!" before anything else came out of his mouth. I'm sure some of that was his excitement to honor his guys like Tre White and Melvin Council Jr. But it's pretty easy to think that he was energized somewhat by this being his final game at Allen Fieldhouse, too.

DISLIKES

• Not sure this was the game they needed - KU has been great at home this year, playing some of its best basketball and winning some ridiculously big games against the nation's best teams — Iowa State, Arizona and Houston, most notably. But this one fell short of reaching the same level as any of those games and quite a few others. After a rough stretch in Arizona last week, the Jayhawks really needed to come home and find it again. They did get the easy win, but considering the opponent anything less would've been really alarming. It's hard to get up for these games, even with it being a rivalry and Senior Day, because K-State posed absolutely no threat to the Jayhawks. Still, there was a lot to gain by playing well and feeling it click again, and it just never quite did. It certainly wasn't a bad outcome but I'm not sure if Kansas gained the boost in confidence and connection that it needed from its final regular season game on the schedule.

• First-half focus & flow - It felt a lot like a pick-up game for the first 10+ minutes of this one, with both teams running up and down without much purpose or organization. Both teams also clearly favored jacking up the first 3-point look they saw in a given possession, which merely added to the sloppy feel. You can say that this was a case of Kansas playing down to the level of its competition, because the Wildcats have looked like that a lot this season. And maybe that's part of it. Human nature means that getting ready to take on a K-State team going the wrong direction is a totally different experience than getting ready to play the nation's No. 1-ranked team, so some of that first half slop was to be expected. On to the next one.

• Early double foul call - It came on the first possession of the game, after K-State scored and when Melvin Council Jr. and K-State's Taj Manning got tangled up while positioning themselves for the rebound. And it easily, easily, easily could've been allowed to go. Instead, the official hit both players with a foul, stopping the game and bringing attention to himself to do so. Dumb move. Again, it was the first possession of the game. Maybe you warn the two players and then move on. But to act like the mix-up was foul worthy — to a couple of starters no less — or to pretend that somehow you felt like you needed to get control of the game was utterly ridiculous. KU coach Bill Self did get tossed in this team's most recent game. And assistant coach Jacque Vaughn got T'd up while filling in for him. But to pretend that that would carry over into this is foolish. Just a bad call on a day that featured more than a few of them.

WHAT THE?

• K-State timeouts - You can't say the man is not consistent. K-State interim coach Matthew Driscoll called three timeouts in the first half and each one of them came after an alley-oop lob by the Jayhawks — two from Melvin Council Jr. to Flory Bidunga and one from Darryn Peterson to Tre White. It's not crazy to think a visiting coach would call a timeout after an electric play by the Jayhawks to try to keep the home crowd down as much as possible. But this was hilarious. Almost before Bidunga or White landed, Driscoll was up and calling timeout and then walking out to the free throw line in front of the K-State bench to try to get his team to regroup. It worked in terms of keeping the crowd subdued. But it didn't really do much to alter the way the game went. K-State was overmatched from the start and even on a day when Kansas brought it's C game, the Jayhawks handled the Wildcats with ease. For what it's worth, Driscoll was able to control himself in the 2nd half. The first DP to Bidunga oop came with just under 16 minutes to play in the 2nd half and Driscoll allowed the action to play on, perhaps knowing that the media timeout was coming.

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