AP Photo/Lucas Peltier

Kansas forward Flory Bidunga (40) celebrates after defeating Duke during an NCAA college basketball game Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas – When Kansas preseason All-American center Hunter Dickinson was sent off midway through the second half of Tuesday night’s game, head coach Bill Self recalled telling his team, “Now we’re going to find out.” “How strong we are.”

As it turned out, the Jayhawks were just strong enough to scrape together a few exceptional defensive possessions late and beat No. 11 Duke 75-72. In doing so, they might have found an identity that they had been looking for for a long time.

“This team didn’t have an identity yet,” Self said. “I think we could probably say proudly that we have a bigger identity now because we kind of won ugly down the stretch, which is what we had to play to have a chance of winning without Hunt being out there. “

How did the Jayhawks pull off the ugly win? They largely accepted their adverse circumstances and welcomed the challenge of playing in Dickinson’s absence.

“We really did it for our big man,” said point guard Dajuan Harris Jr. “In the second half, he was out for half the game, so we just wanted to give him the tough win.”

“It really brought us more together,” added guard AJ Storr, who made his first start Tuesday night. “It gave us more energy. Hunter is our best player. When he went down, it just energized the whole team.”

Once they were able to shake off the initial surprise that Dickinson was actually ejected for the call, he appeared to kick Duke’s Maliq Brown in the head after a foul brought him down with an offensive rebound, but as Storr said : “It didn’t look like him.” “did it on purpose” – they were ready to push further with their two-point lead and ten minutes left in the game.

Perhaps no one is better prepared than “really hyped” freshman center Flory Bidunga.

“After Hunt came out, everyone got caught,” Bidunga said. “You have to do it for Kansas because this is nothing personal, this is Duke versus Kansas.” And then I think we put on a show when Hunt came out. You know, we worked our asses off. They worked their asses off too, but in the end we (won) the game.”

Bidunga, who played the remainder of the second half, finished the game with a team-high six points, eight rebounds, a block and a steal. Self said: “The best thing about Hunter not being in the game was that Flory was. So we’ll look at it positively.”

“I thought he played really well,” senior KJ Adams said. “Of course it’s a shame that an All-American like Hunter had to go, but it makes me happy that Flo got the chance to show the world what he can do and it’s amazing what he’s done out there “Especially as a freshman coming in, in that big environment, huge game, and he did a really good job.”

Adams performed quite well himself, finishing the game with three blocks and three steals to go, as well as eight points and three assists. Self said he “showed a lot of people tonight that you can be an elite player at this level and not a great scorer because he did everything.”

A particularly exemplary demonstration of the work Adams and Bidunga put in was perhaps the game’s most significant defensive play, a huge standoff that left KU ahead by a point with just seconds remaining. Adams stuck to Duke guard Kon Knueppel like glue as the Wisconsin freshman tried to make the kind of spinning, off-balance shot he had attempted with some success throughout the game.

“That defensive possession late when we had a lead is about the best defense KJ can play,” Self said.

And just as Knueppel started to take on Adams, Bidunga was there, using his full length to prevent him from even getting off a shot. The ball was deflected by Knueppel to KU wing Rylan Griffen, who made two free throws to increase KU’s final lead to 75-72.

“When I saw the ball, I just thought, ‘Go get it,’” Griffen said.

Griffen happened to have his own redemption arc in the second half. After making what Self called a “terrible” 3 with the shot clock off at the end of the first half – which resulted in KU going into halftime with a two-point lead, rather than five to eight – he knew Alabama transfer that he “owed” it to his teammates.

“My teammates just told me, ‘Don’t worry,'” Griffen said. “‘Just keep shooting, keep playing hard,’ and I told them I would make up for it, so I tried to do that when I came back in the second half.”

Ultimately, he was the main reason why Duke couldn’t pull away in the final minutes. The Blue Devils took a two-point lead for the first time of the night on a Cooper Flagg dunk (they had led by one point twice) and forced a Self timeout with six minutes left. On the other side of the break, Griffen made a three-pointer; Two minutes later, he grabbed the offensive rebound that led to an old-fashioned three-point play.

“I tried to crash the boards even more,” Griffen said. “When I had free throws, I focused on making them, and then defensively I just focused on that end, too.”

KU only scored one more basket before Griffen’s final free throws, a floater from Zeke Mayo, so he actually accounted for eight of the Jayhawks’ last 10 points.

After the victory, both Self and Adams refrained from placing too much importance on a single win in November. As Adams noted, both KU and Duke will look very different by March. But the Jayhawks laid out a plan for an ugly win and did so without a player, Dickinson, whose performance is usually a prerequisite for any major KU success.

AP Photo/Lucas Peltier

Kansas forward KJ Adams (24) reacts after scoring against Duke during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, in Las Vegas.

AP Photo/Lucas Peltier

Duke guard/forward Cooper Flagg (2) dives for the ball against Kansas forwards Flory Bidunga (40), KJ Adams (24) and guard Zeke during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game on Tuesday, November 26 Mayo (5). , 2024, in Las Vegas.

AP Photo/Lucas Peltier

Kansas forward Flory Bidunga (40) throws the ball against Duke during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game on Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, in Las Vegas.

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Written by Henry Greenstein

Henry is a sports editor at the Lawrence Journal-World and KUsports.com and serves as a KU beat writer while managing daily sports coverage. He previously worked as a sports reporter at The Bakersfield Californian and is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis (BA, Linguistics) and Arizona State University (MA, Sports Journalism). Despite being from Los Angeles, he’s often been told that he doesn’t give off “California vibes,” whatever that means.

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