LAWRENCE, Kan. – Kansas basketball fans in Allen Fieldhouse gave a warm welcome one of their favorite sons, current Stanford head coach Jerod Haase, but then the ball was tipped. Haase, who went 42-0 as a player at KU from 1995-97, suffered his first loss in the building as No. 4/5 Kansas won its seventh-straight game with an 89-74 decision over the visiting Cardinal on Saturday afternoon.
Junior guard Devonte’ Graham drained five 3-pointers in the first half to lift Kansas to a 43-35 halftime lead. Graham passed the torch to junior guard Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk, who guided the Jayhawks in the second half with 13 points on three 3-pointers – all in the last 10 minutes of the contest.
Senior guard Frank Mason III continued his steady production with his fifth 20-point game of the season, finishing with 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting with five assists in 35 minutes.
Stanford entered the game holding opponents to 39 percent shooting, but Kansas (7-1) registered a 52 percent shooting clip on the day, including 12-of-22 from 3-point range.
Reid Travis led the Cardinal (6-3) with 29 points to set an Allen Fieldhouse record for free throws made and attempted by an opponent, finishing 19-of-22 at the free throw line for a game-high 29 points.
Freshman guard Josh Jackson, who posted 13 points and four assists, helped Kansas start with a boom – connecting with Udoka Azubuike for an alley-oop jam on KU’s first offensive possession.
Graham went on to make his first 3-pointer of the day to put Kansas up, 11-9, but the Cardinal rallied for an 8-0 run to take the lead.
The Jayhawks started with a four-guard lineup with center Azubuike but shifted to a two-center lineup with Azubuike and senior Landen Lucas to rally from its early 17-11 deficit. KU’s big-man look stuffed Stanford out the paint to force a three-minute scoring drought.
Graham helped Kansas get past the early hump with his third trey of the game which gave Kansas the go-ahead lead, 20-19 with 9:20 remaining in the half. Graham drained back-to-back 3-poiners to extended KU’s lead to 10 points before going into halftime with a 43-35 lead.
Graham reached 15 first-half points with the third-most 3-pointers in a half in Kansas history (five).
Kansas turned on the afterburners to start the second half with Jackson making a jumper on the first possession, followed by a steal and another fastbreak alley-oop to Azubuike off the backboard. Down the stretch, Kansas put on a show as Jackson flushed an alley-oop pass, Mason banked-in a tilting layup while crashing to the floor, and Mykhailiuk knocked down 3-pointers from the wing that sent the lead ballooning toward 20 late in the game.
Mykhailiuk scored all of his 13 points with under 10 minutes remaining to help Kansas run away with the 89-74 victory.
UP NEXT
Kansas continues its six-game homestand when its hosts UMKC on Tuesday, Dec. 6 at 7 p.m. Central. It will be the last game of the season televised by Jayhawk Television Network/ESPN3.