They shot 73 percent after halftime, hitting 14 of their first 16 shots of the second half, and advanced to the Sweet 16 for the second time in three years.
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No. 1 Kansas made easy work of ninth-seeded CT as Wayne Selden Jr. and Perry Ellis combined for 43 points.
This was the final game in a Husky uniform for Phil Nolan, Omar Calhoun, Miller and Gibbs. Coach Kevin Ollie is a ideal 7-0 now in his postseason NCAA Tournament games with UConn and they’ll get a lot of attention if they can upset Kansas tonight.
Lucas, who had 16 points, eight boards and just two fouls against Peay, said, “If we get in foul trouble like yesterday, and the refs are calling it close, we have to make sure we do something to adjust”.
The Jayhawks will play No. 9 seed CT in a second-round South Region game on Saturday. The Huskies were discombobulated in the first half against Colorado, but the offense caught fire in the second half to pull out ahead. The Jayhawks did everything better, well enough to endure an ugly second-half stretch of their own.
Is Connecticut about to go on another big NCAA Tournament run, just like it did in 2011 and 2014? They were sent home in the round of 32 each of the last two years, but Ellis has been peaking at the right time for a team that brought into the field a bounty of talent as well as the pressure of the No. 1 overall seed. Kansas had scoring surges of 16-0 early and 19-0 late to cruise into the intermission in full control.
“It was a lot of motivation from past year, that feeling we had”, said senior forward Perry Ellis, who scored 21 points with eight rebounds. Jamari Traylor had a couple of commanding blocks in the paint to fire up the Kansas bench and crowd during the 19-0 spurt. That pressed the Huskies into poorer shot selection and ultimately led to their Big Dance demise. The Jayhawk defense was stifling from the start, holding UConn to under 30% shooting through the first half and into the second. Junior Landen Lucas has even come on in recent weeks to supplement Ellis’ mammoth post production, and that doesn’t even begin to touch on the prolific backcourt tandem of Frank Mason and Devonte’ Graham. Selden emerged with 22 points on 8-of-15 shooting and tallied seven rebounds himself.
The Huskies were led by senior guard Sterling Gibbs’ 20 points. Rodney Purvis had 17 points but went just 2 for 7 from 3-point range.
Self was very pleased with the efforts of his victorious team, saying, per the Iowa City Press-Citizen’s Matt Cozzi (h/t the Des Moines Register),”Guys were ready to play…Everybody was on point, offensively and defensively, and we rebounded the ball very well, too”. He tearfully bowed his head, and Ollie reassuringly reached over to pat his neck.
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Kansas got a boost in their odds of winning March Madness and the 2016 NCAA Tournament when Michigan State was knocked out in the first round.
