Moments That Popped: No. 19 Kansas 71, Fort Hays State 35

The Kansas men’s basketball team closed out the exhibition portion of its schedule with a ho-hum, home win over Fort Hays State on Tuesday night in front of a mostly full Allen Fieldhouse crowd.

The Jayhawks took advantage of big-time edges in both size and athleticism to knock off the Tigers, 71-35. The 35 points were the fewest by a KU opponent in an exhibition contest in program history.

KU played 11 players during the non-late-game portion of Tuesday’s win (and 15 total) and also played a man down with star freshman Darryn Peterson in street clothes. More on that below.

The Jayhawks will now spend the rest of the week preparing for next Monday’s season opener against Green Bay at Allen Fieldhouse.

After that, they’ll be thrown into the thick of it in a hurry, with their first road test coming next Friday (Nov. 7) at North Carolina.

Tipoff for the Green Bay game is slated for 7 p.m. on ESPN+

Here’s a look back at some of the highlights from Tuesday night.

LIKES

• Elmarko & Council real luxuries – Melvin Council Jr., who Kansas coach Bill Self clearly thought was the Jayhawks’ best player on Tuesday night, said it both simply and endearingly after Tuesday’s win — “You guys see. We need Darryn.” While that certainly is true and will be even more true against tougher opponents, Council and veteran guard Elmarko Jackson offered a nice option in the backcourt with Peterson sidelined. They’re both crazy fast and crazy athletic. They both can pick up some of the scoring load. And they both do a good job of looking to create for others in moments when Peterson may have created for himself. Jackson was particularly good in that area in the first half, even knocking down a couple of shots when KU’s offense wasn’t clicking. And Council played fast and fantastic all night, pushing the ball in the open floor and creating chaos with his defensive pressure. They won’t want to get too used to playing without Peterson, but in the event that he misses another game or even has to sit because of foul trouble, the Jayhawks have two pretty good options to turn to as initiators of their offense.

• Effort and intensity noticeable – There’s been a lot of talk about this roster being full of Bill Self-type players, and while that can mean a whole bunch of different things, one of the primary things it means is tied to toughness and effort. Even in an exhibition game that they could’ve won with half of their roster, this group showed all kinds of effort by getting on the floor, defending tough and playing most possessions like they meant something much greater. Part of that comes from the expectation and standard set by Self. Part of that is in the individual makeup of each guy. And part of it — perhaps the biggest part — is the fact that playing at Kansas is still so new for so many of these guys. Melvin Council Jr. and Tre White really stood out in this department on Tuesday night.

• Another solid step for Tiller – There’s so much to like about Tiller’s game in general and most of it showed up again on Tuesday night. By far the thing that stood out the most though — at least to me — was the fact that he continues to show far more emotion than we saw from him last season as he quietly kept to himself and lurked in the shadows after arriving on campus a semester early to soak up the experience. Tiller finished with 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting, to go along with 7 rebounds, and looked mostly good in asserting himself and looking to make plays and be a threat. That’s two good games for him in the exhibition slate. He appears to be ready for prime time.

• Local kid back in Lawrence – In the starting lineup for Fort Hays State on Tuesday night was Lawrence native Juju Ramirez, who also had about 40-50 friends and family members in the crowd to support him. Ramirez, who at one point actually had an early scholarship offer from KU, grew up playing at Bishop Seabury Academy before heading to New Hampshire for prep school. He then went to Northern Colorado in Greeley, Colo., and played one more year back east before returning to the Sunflower State to finish out his college career. The 6-foot-9, 230-pound Ramirez finished with 7 points in 21 minutes while constantly battling with Bidunga and KU big man Paul Mbiya throughout the night. He cashed the Tigers’ only 3-point make of the night and had a couple of others that rimmed out.

DISLIKES

• No DP :-( – Although Allen Fieldhouse wasn’t full, those who did make the trip to the old barn on Tuesday night wound up missing out on the chance to watch phenomenal freshman Darryn Peterson play a game on KU’s home floor for the first time. Peterson, who was limited by cramps in the 2nd half of last Friday’s exhibition road win, sat this one out with what KU coach Bill Self called a bug of some kind, along with lingering issues from the cramping. Peterson did not practice on Monday but was able to go on Sunday. It seemed as much like a precautionary move as anything on Tuesday night, but Self made it clear on Monday that the cramps were an issue the Jayhawks had to figure out so Peterson could be and stay at full strength.

• Lead slips – The Jayhawks jumped out to a 15-4 lead in this one and looked largely good doing it. But Fort Hays State, as these smaller schools are known to do, refused to lay down and, instead, cut the KU lead to 15-10 with a 6-0 run over a 2-minute spurt midway through the first half. The Tigers’ run was a combination of KU mistakes and FHSU plays. And it was snapped with a vicious alley-oop from Jayden Dawson to Flory Bidunga. The game was never in jeopardy and those things are going to happen in matchups like this. But it seems like they tend to happen more at the start than in the middle. After KU broke out to the double-digit lead with pretty good effort and intensity, you kind of thought they might never look back.

• Bidunga a little off – His shooting numbers weren’t great — from the floor or the free throw line — and he continued to look a little sped up and out of sync throughout the night. Self said after the game that Bidunga looked that way because he got out of character and tried too much to do things that were not his strengths. Whether that was taking guys off the dribble or playing too freely or by simply missing shots, Bidunga finished with 6 points and 9 rebounds on 3-of-9 shooting in 19 minutes. He missed all 5 free throws he attempted and didn’t look particularly good on any of them. He did, however, look plenty good when he was on the finishing end of a couple of lobs from his teammates. Finishing around the rim, dunking the ball, blocking shots and rim-running. Those are his strengths. Expect to see him focus on those and deliver much better in the weeks ahead.

WHAT THE?

• Two big bigs? – It’s one thing for Self to play Bryson Tiller next to Flory Bidunga, which he did for a decent amount of time last Friday at Louisville. But it’s something entirely different for him to put Bidunga out there with Paul Mbiya. That type of look is not something I’d think we’ll see a whole lot this season, which is what made it interested on Tuesday night, even for the limited amount of time that we saw it in the first half. What made that lineup even more head-scratching was the fact that it came against a team that the Jayhawks already had a huge size advantage over at pretty much all five positions. Again, I doubt we’ll see it much this season. If fact, Self said after the game that we may never see it again and that it was merely the result of him trying to get guys as many minutes as possible on a night when everyone played.

— For tickets to all KU athletic events, visit kuathletics.com