It wasn’t always pretty but in March you sometimes have to grind out a game and the Jayhawks did just that.
Headed into the matchup with Illinois there were two areas that the Jayhawks figured to have an advantage and they capitalized on both. While Illinois has good length on the interior, they aren’t necessarily physically dominant bigs. That meant that the Morris twins would have a chance to come up big for the Jayhawks. The second advantage for Kansas was depth.
Throughout the early going the Illini continually crawled back in and kept it within arms length while the Morris twins provided a steady lift for the Jayhawks underneath. At around the midpoint of the second half fatigue began to set in and the Illini defense started to break down. That allowed Kansas to put together a solid run led by the Morris twins on the interior and from that point on the Jayhawks never looked back.
For Kansas the win means they get past that second round hump that has been lingering over their heads since the loss to Northern Iowa a year ago. It means they head to the Sweet 16 for a game against twelfth seeded Richmond. And as the only surviving Big 12 conference team, Kansas now has an opportunity to play for a Final Four spot next weekend in San Antonio. Things are setting up very nicely for this years Kansas Jayhawks.
Kansas wins by a final score of 73-59. The Jayhawks were led by Markieff Morris who scored 24 points and grabbed 12 rebounds while brother Marcus scored 17 and also contributed 12 rebounds in the game.