A clear positive from tonight: Perry and Lucas

I thought we won this game with their inside play (on both ends), along with Svi's rather surprising first half boost. (Kudos to Svi on that, but I want to call out our two bigs in this post)

Perry:

* When he finally realized the Kitties were going to give him space out on the perimeter, he made them pay. Boy, did he make them pay! Those three-bombs were huge, and he has a really pretty stroke. I say to Perry: Son, when you have those looks, TAKE THE SHOT! All day and all night long. Everyday. Not only will it boost KU's momentum, but it will stretch the D, open up the inside cuts and passing lanes, and also eventually force a big to come out further on Perry, where he can use his speed and cuts to his advantage to get by him and do damage inside (score or dish). Win-win.

* The steal and thunderous 2-handed jam made me get up out of my seat! And then he followed it up shortly thereafter with another thunderous slam that made the stanchion sway! To paraphrase Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, albeit in the singular not plural sense: "Who is this guy?" I don't know where he's been all this time, but WELCOME to the new Perry! Love the energy, the anger, the swag that was on display on those plays. And what a contrast to the UK game, where the double-teams and foul trouble combined with his wallflower-like energy to render him pretty ineffective. Keep it up, Sir Ellis!

Lucas:

* Corpus's +/- numbers speak volumes about how well KU played when Landon was on the floor. He did a nice job playing vertical on D, using that big frame to stop their bigs' and smalls' drives and generally keep the ball out of the rim.

* He also hit a couple bunnies tonight--including a running breakaway with Svi, where Landon actually moved his feet and went up with a man near him and hit the layup. Woo-hoo! (The small things, folks, the small things...baby steps!)

* He's not a flashing neon sign type of player. He's vanilla. But he performs to his role and generally doesn't make a whole lot of mistakes (tonight the only one was the ill-advised 15-footer, which resulted in a Coach Self face-palm). He's the Hippocratic Oath applied to KU basketball: "First, do no harm." Tonight, he not only did that, he did some damage (to the other team). Good job.

In an otherwise choppy game that left a bit of a bad taste despite the double-digit outcome, our interior gave us some reason to smile. Here's to hoping we can say that more often going forward.

Rock Chalk...