Moments That Popped: No. 2 Duke 90, No. 17 Kansas 84 (exhibition)

For the second time in five days, the Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball team hosted an exhibition game that you easily could have mistaken for a high-leverage game in March.

And, for the second time in the past week, the 17th-ranked Jayhawks came out on the wrong end of the score, losing this one 90-84 to No. 2 Duke.

The Blue Devils and Jayhawks met at Allen Fieldhouse for the first time since 1988 in a newly formed Blue Blood Classic exhibition game that will move to Durham, North Carolina next year.

It was all Duke for most of the day, but the Jayhawks fought and competed deep into the game. KU never led by more than six points (12-6) and held its last lead at 68-66 with 11:28 to play in the game. Duke controlled most of the rest of the game, and sometimes with relative ease.

That made sense, though, given the fact that this Duke team returned a handful of key players from last year's team and also has a ton of college basketball experience. Not to mention talent.

There was a lot to be learned from this game and the crazy-tough exhibition slate the Jayhawks had this season. And you can bet they're already soaking up some of those lessons. The good news about these exhibition losses was twofold: it was clear they hurt these guys and that the result matter, but it also is easy to flush them and remember that they don't count on your record or against you when things get going for real.

The Jayhawks will be off this week and then return to Allen Fieldhouse to start things off in the regular season a week from Monday, on Nov. 2, when KU plays host to Fordham. Tipoff is slated for 7 p.m. on ESPN+.

Here's a look back and some of Sunday's action.

LIKES

• Stokes just keeps attacking – The KU freshman had 27 points and could've had 40. He was that good in this one, minus a couple of close-range misses and a few misses at the free throw line. I know a lot of KU fans are frustrated when they see that, and Stokes is right there with you himself. But rest easy. He'll get there. In many ways he's already there. The rest will come. And when it does, he has a chance to be a triple-double threat on pretty much every night. And, obviously, against anybody. That was a damn good Duke team he battled with today.

• Small ball look got a real test vs. bigger Blue Devils – For a portion of the first half and nearly all of the second half, Self went with Keanu Dawes and Tyran Stokes as his bigs, with White at the 3 and Blyden and Council in the backcourt. That's one of those small-ball lineups he talked about this preseason and it was a little rough against the bigger Blue Devils lineup. When Self talked about the potential to play small during the offseason, one of the things he talked about was how KU was going to have to be much better rebounding out of the look than it had showed most of the offseason. That was one of the issues with the lineup on Sunday, but Self stuck with it. Interestingly enough, Duke countered the move, at least for a couple minutes, by going with its 2-big look, putting 6-11 forward Patrick Ngongba II and 7-2 center Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje out there together. The Jayhawks did trim the Duke lead from double-digits to 6 on a couple of occasions with that group out there, and even took leads in the second half, but it was a grind, especially on the glass. There were areas when it worked out great for Kansas, though, with Dawes using his athleticism and ability to play on the perimeter to create problems for Duke's bigs. I doubt this will be the last time we see that lineup. The big question from here is how does newcomer Trey Kaufman-Renn look or fit into it?

• Reeves at the 5 – This one likely mattered a little more to KU big man Christian Reeves, who actually started his career at Duke a handful of years ago before moving on to Clemson and then Charleston before landing in Lawrence. And it didn't take long for you to see how much he cared, as Reeves hit the offensive glass hard in the early going of this game and was a factor in the paint on the defensive end, as well. He says he's fully healthy and he looks to be moving really well out there. His fluid athleticism and experience makes him a better option at the 5 than fellow KU big man Paul Mbiya, who remains a project even if he is making good progress. Reeves is easily my pick to start and Mbiya seems like a solid back-up option who can play 10-15 minutes on most nights and stay on the floor for more if the matchup or a hot hand favors him. Cool to see Reeves get after it against the Blue Devils right away. He finished the game with 2 points and 5 rebounds in 6 first-half minutes. He did not play in the 2nd half.

• Welcome back, Roy – Former KU coach Roy Williams, who led the Jayhawks to four Final Fours and elevated the program to incredible heights during his 15 seasons in Lawrence, was back at Allen Fieldhouse sitting courtside with his wife Wanda for this one. He received a huge ovation — several even stood — from the KU crowd when he was introduced during the Under-12 timeout of the first half. Williams has always said that even after leaving KU to go back to North Carolina, he cheered for the Jayhawks anytime they weren't playing his team. You can imagine then that that made it incredibly easy for him to cheer for Kansas on Sunday, when the Jayhawks were facing hated-Carolina rival Duke. Williams stood an acknowledged the ovation, putting his hand over his heart and waving to the Fieldhouse fans after being introduced. Couple of cool things I learned about Roy today... He's been back around the area for a few days so he could attend the Ted Owens Hall of Fame introduction and during that time he played a round of golf with old friend Randy Towner and two former Jayhawks — Mike Maddox, who was on Roy's first KU team, and Wayne Simien, who was on his last KU team. Pretty cool. In addition to that, Williams wore a sweater to today's game that I heard he has pulled out often for games against Duke and he's had pretty good luck in it.

• Blue Devils galore – It's not every day you walk through Allen Fieldhouse and see so many people wearing Duke Blue Devils gear — funny enough, there were some Duke shirts at the KU football game on Saturday — but there were a ton of Duke fans in attendance for this one, and good for them for making the trip. I'd imagine a bunch of Kansas fans will head down to Durham, North Carolina next season when these two do this again. It might've felt different if this were a regular season game and maybe I've been to enough of these on neutral courts in the Champions Classic or NCAA Tournament to be stunned by the look of both fan bases converged in the same space. But it was still cool to see it in Allen Fieldhouse, where a whole bunch of Dukies can now take back what they saw and learned about this venue and tell Duke fans their thoughts about how it relates to Cameron Indoor Stadium. Exactly what this should've been.

DISLIKES

• Ball still sticking too much – Self talked about this a little the other night, after Louisville, and it was on display again during portions of this game. In particular, it sticks when freshman Tyran Stokes looks to make a play, when Tre White wants to get going and when Melvin Council Jr. and even Taylen Kinney hold it a little too long while trying to make something happen. There are, of course, times when this is necessary. Late shot clock. Mismatches. And more. But, for the most part, this team still needs to find its rhythm when it comes to ball movement, ball reversal, hitting Self's favorite third side and getting the defense moving side to side. Not surprisingly, Self acknowledged this fact again after Sunday's loss to the Blue Devils, saying simply, "we more or less just play to one-on-one." There's reason to believe that this will change, though. For one, these guys seem to care and really want to get better. For two, it will be easier to do that the more they learn how to play with each other and the more comfortable they are with the lineup.

• Blyden's fit – Granted, this was Louisville and Duke, two of the best teams in the country, but I can't help but wonder just how well Toledo transfer Leroy Blyden Jr. will fare at this level and against KU's schedule. He started on Sunday and played 16 minutes, but just 4 of those came in the 2nd half and his stats were nothing to write home about. His size creates issues and teams have appeared to be happy to hound him with intense on-the-ball pressure every time he handles it. He's still got plenty of time and room to grow and he might do just that. But it's clear that there's work to do there.

• Free throw woes – Nobody likes to whine about their team missing free throws and nobody likes to hear it talked about because there's just so little that teams and coaches can do to fix it. Can they work on it more in practice? Sure. Do they have better things to do than that? You bet. And, you know what? They already do work on it. Sometimes working on it too much or giving it extra attention can make it more of a mental issue than it already is. The Jayhawks were just 18-of-27 at the free throw line in this one, a game they lost by 6 points. Making even 70% of those freebies they missed very well could've changed the way the flow of the game went throughout the second half. It is what it is. They know they need to address it. It's now just a simple matter of knocking them down.

• Rosario injured – Sophomore wing Kohl Rosario did not play in this one after suffering a concussion during a collision at a recent KU practice. If the first couple of games taught us anything about this it's that Rosario was fighting to crack the Top 8 or 9 in the rotation, so not having him was not devastating. It also opened the door for freshman Trent Perry to play more minutes than he might've and Perry performed pretty well in his 8 first-half minutes. He's a high-motor guy and you're going to have to live with some mistakes when he plays. But he loves to defend, never backs down, runs the floor incredibly well and is widely regarded as one of this team's best dunkers.

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