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KU is embracing the challenge of playing without Dickinson and building “more identity” in the process
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KU is embracing the challenge of playing without Dickinson and building “more identity” in the process







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AP Photo/Lucas Peltier


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



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

As it turned out, the Jayhawks were just strong enough to string together a pair of exceptional defensive possessions late and beat No. 11 Duke 75-72. In doing so, they might have found an identity they had long sought.

“This team had no identity yet,” Self said. “I think we can maybe be proud to say that we have more of an identity now because we won in an ugly way, which we had to play that way to have a chance of winning without Hunt.”

How did the Jayhawks get this 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,” point guard Dajuan Harris Jr. said. “He was out for half the game in the second half, so we just wanted to get that tough win for him.”

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

Once they shook off the initial surprise that Dickinson was actually ejected for the call, it appeared he kicked Duke’s Maliq Brown in the head after coming down with an offensive rebound following a foul, but as Storr said: “It didn’t look like he did it intentionally” – they were prepared to continue with their two-point lead with ten minutes to play.

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

“Everyone was picked up after Hunt was released,” Bidunga said. “You have to do it for Kansas because that’s not something personal, that’s Duke versus Kansas. And then I think we put on a show when Hunt got out. You know, we played our asses off. They also played hard, but in the end we (won) the match.”

Bidunga, who had to play evenly for the rest of the second half, finished the game with six points, a team-high 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 are going to look at it positively.”

“I think he played really well,” senior KJ Adams said. “It’s obviously a shame that an All-American like Hunter had to go, but it makes me happy that Flo got a chance to show the world what he can do, and it’s amazing what he did out there, especially a freshman coming in.” , in that big environment, a huge match, and he did really well.

Adams performed quite well himself, finishing with three blocks and three steals to go with his 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 be a prolific scorer because he did it all.”

A particularly exemplary demonstration of the work Adams and Bidunga did was possibly the most important defensive play of the game, a huge score that left KU with a one-point lead with just seconds remaining. Adams stuck like glue to Duke guard Kon Knueppel as the freshman from Wisconsin tried to go for the kind of spinning, off-balance shot he had attempted with some success throughout the game.

“That defensive possession late when we were up by one, that’s about as good defense as KJ can play,” Self said.

And right as Knueppel started to take on Adams, there was Bidunga, using all his height to prevent him from even making a shot. The ball went from Knueppel to KU wing Rylan Griffen, who made a pair of free throws to push KU’s final margin to 75-72.

“As soon as I saw the ball, I thought, ‘Go get it,’” Griffen said.

Griffen had his own redemption arc in the second half. After pulling up for what Self called a “terrible” 3 with the shot clock turned off at the end of the first half — one that led to KU going into the break two points instead of between five and eight — the Alabama transfer knew that he “owed” it to his teammates.

“My teammates just told me, ‘Don’t worry about it,’” Griffen said. “’Just keep shooting, keep playing hard,’ and I told them I was going to make it right, so that’s what I tried to do when I came back, in the second half.”

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

“I tried to crash the boards even more,” Griffen said. “When I got open shots, I focused on making them, and defensively I was just focused on that goal as well.”

KU ultimately scored just one more bucket, a floater by Zeke Mayo, before Griffen’s final free throws, so he was essentially responsible for eight of the Jayhawks’ final 10 points.

After the win, Self and Adams both refrained from attaching too much significance to a single victory in November. As Adams noted, both KU and Duke will look very different in March. But the Jayhawks laid out a blueprint for winning ugly, and did it without a player, Dickinson, whose production is usually a prerequisite for any major KU success.

article imageAP Photo/Lucas Peltier

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

article imageAP 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 Mayo (5) during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2024, in Vegas.

article imageAP Photo/Lucas Peltier

Kansas’ Flory Bidunga (40) dunks 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 Hendrik Groenstein

Henry is sports editor at Lawrence Journal-World and KUsports.com, and serves as 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). Even though he’s from Los Angeles, he’s often told he doesn’t exude a “California vibe,” whatever that means.