Big men roll over Fort Hays State

Brandon Rush may have spent Tuesday night on the Kansas bench merely watching his teammates blow out Fort Hays State 94-59 in an exhibition game. But don’t think he didn’t have an impact.

Brandon Rush delivered a message to senior forward Darnell Jackson before the Jayhawks took the court against the Tigers.

“Brandon Rush told me, you need to bring some intensity to the court today and that’s what I did,” Jackson said. “I went out there and just tried to play my hardest and push myself to get every rebound, try to block some shots and get the guys open.”

Jackson scored ten points and grabbed eight rebounds in the victory. He also repaired Coach Bill Self’s main concern following the Jayhawks first exhibition game: rebounding.

Kansas was out rebounded by Pittsburg State last Thursday but Jackson made sure the Jayhawks didn’t succumb to a repeat performance on the glass Tuesday. He ripped down two rebounds within the first minute he was subbed in.

“Your best rebounders, you want them to just turn and hit their man and just go after the ball,” Self said. “I think that our three big guys, our three veterans, did a great job of going after the ball.”

It was one of those big men that sparked the most important Kansas run. The score was still close at 16-6 midway through the first half when sophomore forward Darrell Arthur took over.

He scored six points in the next three minutes, which made him the key contributor in a 22-3 run that buried the Tigers. Arthur finished with a game-high 20 points, his first 20-point game in nearly a year.

“Most of my points came from alley-oops, tip ins, throw backs and stuff like that,” Arthur said. “I was trying to attack the glass more.”

Self stressed the importance of getting the ball to Arthur in the low post leading into the game and it became apparent why. Arthur was 9-for-15 and overpowered the smaller frontcourt of Fort Hays State. Senior guard Russell Robinson said it was no coincidence that Arthur has more opportunities to make an impact.

“In the last game, we didn’t do a good job of getting him any touches, I don’t think he got shots,” Robinson said. “This game we definitely wanted to go through him and get him some looks early and get him going. When he is going, everybody is going.”

The guards were creative in finding ways to get Arthur the ball near the basket. Arthur said he had a couple of opportunities to use his favorite spin move to get a bucket. But judging by the roar from the Allen Fieldhouse crowd, his most exciting points came from his three alley-oop dunks.

The guard trio of senior Russell Robinson, junior Mario Chalmers and sophomore Sherron Collins also gave the Jayhawk faithful much to cheer about. The three combined for 33 points and 10 steals.

Self said that while there were some positives to extract from the exhibition game, the Jayhawks still have a long way to go.

“One good thing is we were able to play a lot of guys, we’re not going to be able to do that from this point forward very often at all, if any,” he said. “It was good we were able to play some guys but I do think there are certainly some areas of improvement.”