Kansas beat K-State by 10. Why Hunter Dickinson felt ‘it should have been more’

In storming to leads of 14-0 and 20-4 over the first seven minutes, Kansas’ No. 9-ranked basketball team looked like it might rout rival Kansas State on Saturday afternoon at Allen Fieldhouse.

Instead, the slumping Wildcats (7-10, 1-5) sliced a 16-point deficit to six during crunch time — they actually had chances to cut the gap to four twice — in an 84-74 Jayhawks win witnessed by 15,300 fans.

“We kind of let off the gas,” KU senior center Hunter Dickinson said after scoring 25 points, including 10 straight for the Jayhawks (13-4, 4-2) in an early second-half stretch that upped an eight-point lead to 49-36.

“Obviously it was a 10-point win. That’s a good win, but I feel like it should have been more. I feel we were too lax (lackadaisical) out there, kind of gave them a little hope,” added Dickinson, who hit 12 of 19 shots, grabbed eight rebounds, dished three assists to two turnovers and blocked a shot in 34 minutes.

He and Flory Bidunga (six points, nine rebounds, one block in 25 minutes) had a busy day battling KSU big men Coleman Hawkins (15 points, 10 rebounds, seven assists) and David N’Guessan (13 points, five boards). The KU inside duo was cheered on by senior forward KJ Adams, who missed his first game of the season because of a shoulder separation incurred in Wednesday’s loss to Iowa State.

“We should have beat them by more, but we’ll take that,” senior point guard Dajuan Harris said after scoring 15 points with five rebounds, five assists and one turnover in 36 minutes. His block of a Dug McDaniel breakaway layup with 3:41 left prevented KSU from slicing a 72-66 deficit to four points.

“It’s going to always be a pride thing when we play against K-State. We’ve just got to close out games better, have more energy,” added Harris, who finished with two blocks.

K-State coach Jerome Tang called a 30-second timeout after a Bidunga hook shot gave KU a 7-0 lead and another timeout when KU went up 14-0 following a Zeke Mayo 3. Mayo went 4-of-7 from 3 and scored 24 points. He was 6-of-8 from the line.

Yet KSU never trailed by more than that early 16-point deficit (20-4).

“We did some good things, don’t get me wrong, (but) when you start out that good you certainly want to finish better than we did,” KU coach Bill Self said.

“I thought they hung in there and did some good things,” he added of the Wildcats, who will play host to KU in a rematch on Feb. 8 at Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan. “We did some good things. We got the ball where it needed to go. Defensively we didn’t do anything to put pressure on them like I hoped we would.”

KU did score 84 points without Adams, who Self said would definitely miss Wednesday’s game at TCU.

Bidunga received the starting nod next to Dickinson, Mayo, Harris and Shakeel Moore.

“It’s a different team,” Self said of the Jayhawks without Adams, “because we can run plays, we can do different things with KJ (that) not everybody is comfortable doing yet. Maybe I should temper my expectations a little bit when we do sub when KJ is not out there because it seemed today when we made a mistake K-State did a good job making us pay for it. A lot of times with KJ out there you make a mistake and the other team doesn’t even realize you made a mistake.”

Bidunga hit 2 of 3 shots and went 2-of-2 from the line. His free throws were important in upping an eight-point lead to 10 with 2:27 left. KSU had it back down to six points with 1:45 to play.

“He’s been the best of the other guys, at least to this point. There really wasn’t a decision to be made on that,” Self said of starting Bidunga over AJ Storr (seven points, 17 minutes, including a 3 that upped a 10-point lead to 56-43 with 13:01 left) and Rylan Griffen (one rebound, one assist, 12 minutes).

“If you look statistically, our best team analytically … regardless of who is in the game, our best combination is Flory and Hunter when you talk about points per possession offensively and points given up defensively,” Self stated.

Self was impressed with the high scoring combo of Dickinson and Mayo.

“That was big that ‘Hunt’ got going to start the second half (and score those 10 in a row). I thought that was the most aggressive he’s looked offensively in a long time,” Self said.

Of Mayo, who hit 7 of 13 shots, Self said: “He was great. I thought he drove the ball better too.”

When asked about Adams’ status, Self said: “Same thing as yesterday. I haven’t had a medical report since then. He’s going to be out, I don’t want to say (he’ll miss) significant time because with KJ you never know (he’s known as one of KU’s toughest players). He won’t play Wednesday, that’s for sure.”

Tipoff for KU-TCU in Fort Worth will be 6 p.m., Wednesday.