After a tough loss on Monday in Columbia, MO, Kansas faced a red-hot in-state rival, who had won six straight, in today's game in Manhattan, KS. And early, Kansas appeared to be suffering the same turnover disease that plagued them on Monday when they had 27 TO's.
I thought that Tyrone Appleton, Quintrell Thomas and Marcus Morris were the kids off the bench who steadied the slide in the first half. The Jayhawks then went on a run to pull within one at halftime.
In the second half, KSU started well early but Kansas went on a run and began regularly feeding Cole Aldrich in the post. KU went from a three point deficit at the 15:53 mark to a four point advantage with 14 minutes to play. They never trailed after that even though Kansas State cut the lead to two.
Marcus Morris was Kansas' player of the game. After the critical technical foul in the MU game, Morris responded with his most active game of the year. He had 15 points, 7 rebounds and was an important 6 of 8 in free throws.
Brady Morningstar was also huge for Kansas. He was 4 of 4 from 3-point land as KU buried 8 of 12 from behind the arc.
This win, obviously, was important--a split of the two away games on rival courts was critical to keep pace in the league race. Lose both and Oklahoma would be hard to catch for the conference championship.
Kansas now has home games against Iowa State and Nebraska before the February 23 Big Monday match-up in Norman against the Sooners.
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