Kansas basketball ties Kentucky’s all-time win record with NCAA Tournament win vs. Creighton
Jordan Guskey
FORT WORTH, TX — As Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self previewed his team’s NCAA Tournament game against Creighton, he downplayed the significance of potentially tying Kentucky for the lead in all-time wins.
Self, speaking Friday, hoped of course that his Jayhawks would. He hoped they’d be able to pass the Wildcats with more victories. But for Self, that came from a desire to see Kansas continue to advance in the NCAA Tournament, nothing else.
Regardless, Saturday saw the Jayhawks top the Bluejays in a 79-72 victory that both sends them to the Sweet 16 of the Midwest region and ties the program with Kentucky for all-time wins. Kansas (30-6) will go up against either 12-seed Richmond or 4-seed Providence for a spot in the Elite Eight, and a chance to take the lead in the all-time wins race. The Jayhawks have certainly been able to benefit, in this respect, from the Wildcats’ being eliminated from the NCAA Tournament in the first round.
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Here are a few other takeaways from 1-seed Kansas’ win in the round of 32 against 9-seed Creighton (23-12):
Jayhawks advance to first Sweet 16 since 2018
Kansas had fallen a game short of reaching the Sweet 16 in both 2019 and 2021, and considering the 2020 tournament was canceled, that meant the last time the Jayhawks had made it that far was 2018, when they also reached the Elite Eight and Final Four. The drought is over now, though, with Kansas topping 16-seed Texas Southern and Creighton. Now it’s up to the Jayhawks to pick up a couple more wins.
It’s unclear exactly which teams Kansas will have to beat to get there. Those games have yet to end. But the Jayhawks should be the favorite to advance at this point.
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Creighton’s 3-point barrage cools some, but not a lot, in second half
By the time halftime arrived, the Bluejays had taken 15 3s and made eight of them. Overall, they were just 12-for-32 from the field. That meant they were hitting 53.3% of their attempts from behind the arc, and just 23.5% of their attempts inside it. Cleary, 3-point shooting was the main reason they were only trailing the Jayhawks by one point after 20 minutes of play.
In the second half, though, Creighton’s 3s didn’t fall near as often as they did in the first. The Bluejays went 4-for-13 on attempts from behind the arc in the final 20 minutes. They finished shooting 42.9% on 3s and 35.6% on field goal attempts total. Coming into the game, Creighton had been averaging 6.6 makes on 21.6 attempts from behind the arc each game, and Kansas had been allowing 6.1 makes on 20.3 attempts from behind the arc per game.
Ochai Agbaji struggles to hit shots through Kansas’ opening rounds
In the Jayhawks’ round of 64 victory, although Kansas eclipsed 80 points, senior guard Ochai Agbaji went just 5-for-14 from the field and 1-for-5 on 3s. In their round of 32 victory, Agbaji went 5-for-14 from the field and 1-for-3 on 3s. That means, combined across the opening games of the tournament, Agbaji is shooting 35.7% from the field and 25% from behind the arc.
The offense is still finding ways to produce, despite Agbaji — who did go 4-for-5 from the free-throw line Saturday — not being the one regularly hitting shots. Super-senior guard Remy Martin has been valuable off the bench, and scored 16 of his 20 points Saturday in the first half. But Kansas is obviously better when its All-American is hitting shots, and coming into this game, Agbaji was hitting 47.4% of his attempts from the field and 40.1% of his attempts from behind the arc.
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.