Survive and advance

I'm not going to lie. I actually thought they'd lose tonight. They struggled all year with teams that could shoot threes. But they weathered the storm and pull it off. I'm happy. I'd love another win or two or five. But this was good.

Man, all year long I thought Timberlake was a bust. But he shined tonight. So good for him. Hope he keeps it up. It'd be nice to make up for Kevin's points!

Rock chalk!!!

Ugh. Not happy about winning on such a bad call, but it is what it is. I dozed off partway in the 2nd half and we were rolling. Woke up with about 5 left and was shocked that we'd let it slip away.

Not a memorable season and we've avoided getting shut down in the 1st round. I trully dislike Gonzaga, so I really hope we can get past them, but I think it's a coin toss at best. If we do, I'm happy to move on from this year's team.

That was an important bad call, but it was not the only bad call and most of them did not go the Hawks way. I know all the hype will be on that one call and that is a shame. I thought the Samford coach did a pretty good job of not blaming the refs as that call was crucial. As is typical for the Hawks an opponent has a player who for the season has made 6 of 25 3 pointers and goes 4 of 4 against them. I thought as big a key to the Samford comeback as making 3 pointers was their rebounding and I thought a lot of that was the Hawks not going after the ball. I would be interested to see the stats by half. The fact that Samford got up 73 shots and the Hawks only got 58 shots was big. Hopefully Mr. Jackson can recover from that game and do better.

All KU had to do down the stretch was make free throws and it wouldn't have been a nail-biter. Harris made a couple key ones, and so did Nick, but there was a stretch where they missed four in a row. Hunter and KJ were a combined 1 for 8 from the line.

Read the Athletic this morning and their simplistic take away is that if not for a miraculous missed call towards the end of the game KU about “choked” last nights game away. I have been down on this team much of the year but last nights performance made me proud to be a Jayhawk once again. I think the guys showed great grit and poise against a perfect storm that would have sunk many a quality team (ref. Kentucky).
The most glaring issue was our short roster. Samford played 11 to our 8, 9 with double digit minuets to our 6. They had 3 starters over 30 min (31,31,32) to our 4 starters over 35 min (35,36,37,39). Samford dictated the pace of an up tempo game which was obviously their game plan and we accepted the challenge and prevailed. We didn’t choke- we were spent, and rightly so.
The other glaring issue is “the call”. Late in the game, due to fatigue and what I felt were some ticky tack calls on us, we had the extra burden of foul trouble. Timberlake, Harris and Jackson all had 4 with Furphy at 3. Samford had two starters with 4 fouls and one with three, their rest of their fouls harmlessly scattered amongst the other starters and their six man bench. Timberlake, the guy who hit 2 from the stripe to put us up a possession with 14 sec to play, made one of the best plays of the game when, at about the half-minute mark, played matador and allowed himself to get posterized on the dunk by Achor Achor, avoiding his fifth and final foul.
So my final assessment: playing shorthanded, with fatigue and foul trouble weighing us down in a very up tempo game, coach and the guys kept their focus and made enough plays at the end to walk away with a very hard earned W! No choke!
RCJH

I managed to watch the last 10 minutes of the first half, watching the rest this afternoon, but I saw two walks both of which resulted in points, someone pointed out a couple more towards the end of the second half. I didn't feel bad about the call. The reality is Timberlake probably should have held up and draw the foul and try to take a few more seconds off the clock. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Oi Oi Oi! Thought the Aussie played a pretty good game as well. Agreed, our poor free throw shooting during their run did not help. There was a point in the game where Achor Achor and Johnny gave each other a pat on the back. Two Aussies acknowledging each other. You may not know but a lot of African refugees moved to Australia, mainly from Somalia, Ethiopia and East Africa. They have had a big impact on various sports, but mainly BB.