Bill Self showered praise on KJ Adams on Tuesday night after the 6-foot-7 senior forward suffocated Duke standout Cooper Flagg on defense while chipping in eight points in the Jayhawks’ Vegas Showdown victory over the Blue Devils at T-Mobile Arena in Nevada.

On Saturday, the Austin, Texas native again earned accolades from 22nd-year KU coach Self, this time after tying a career-high with 22 points on 10-of-12 shooting and grabbing six rebounds in an 86-51 victory over Furman in the Showdown finale at Allen Fieldhouse.

Adams flushed three dunks, two off alley-oop passes and also had two layups and five buckets off short shots in the paint to account for his career-high-tying 10 baskets in one game.

“Hey, if he’s not Big 12 player of the week this week, I don’t know that anybody will ever deserve it with the week that he’s had,” Self said after the Jayhawks improved to 7-0 and handed Furman (7-1) its first loss of the season.

“KJ scored tonight and how many shots did he make outside of three feet?“ He played to his athletic ability and strength,” Self added. “Against Duke, he didn’t get those same opportunities. He had to use his skill to score against Duke (on mid-range jumpers). I think he’s playing at a pretty high level and definitely he’s on point right now.”

Aware of Self’s words of praise following the Duke game, Adams was intent on putting together two outstanding games in a row to cap Thanksgiving week.

“When you have a big game like Duke,” Adams said, “the tendency is to fall down a little bit and take this (next) game a little lightly. These couple practices (Thursday and Friday), we’ve been building on that hype and trying to get better. We turned in a good game with everybody building off what we did against Duke in Vegas,” Adams added.

Adams said whether he goes for 22 points or eight on a given night, the goal is to “dominate.” His impressive stat line came in 27 minutes of work Saturday.

“That’s kind of my motto. Dajuan helps with a lot of that stuff,” Adams said of senior point guard Dajuan Harris, who scored eight points with eight assists against one turnover Saturday after burning Duke for 14 points and nine assists with two turnovers.

“Dajuan always tells me in practice (to) be aggressive with whatever that is. A game like this favored me inside (against a team known for shooting a lot of 3s). That’s what I did to help us today,” Adams stated.

Harris said he reminded Adams on Saturday to be aggressive against a Furman team that hit 9 of 38 3s to KU’s 4 of 17. The 38 3-point attempts was three off a record total (in a KU game) of 41 set by Iowa State against KU on Feb. 25, 2013, in Ames, Iowa.

“Literally every day I tell him that because I know how good KJ is,” Harris said. “I know he is one of the strongest players on the court and the most athletic guy. ‘If you get the ball down there, go score the ball.’ He’s great, especially in a short roll situation. KJ is unselfish like me. I’ve been trying to tell him, ‘Let me do the passing. You do the scoring.’ But sometimes I do the scoring and he does the passing. I tell him to be aggressive all the time.”

KU on Saturday had 25 assists on its 39 baskets

“I think our team is pretty unselfish for the most part,” Self said. “With a couple of guys they are probably not going to be the guys to make the pass to finish the play, but they can still be guys that can impact the play by ball and body movement. They are getting better at it. For the most part I think we do share it pretty well. When your big guys pass it and share like KJ and Hunter (Dickinson), it makes it lot easier.”

Dickinson had 10 points and six rebounds with an assist in 24 minutes. Rylan Griffin also had 10 points, four rebounds and two steals while David Coit had nine points and five rebounds.

KU will next meet Creighton at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, in Omaha.