FORT WORTH, TX — Kansas caught a break Saturday, and Ochai Agbaji knows it.
With about a minute left, and the Jayhawks up 73-72, Creighton freshman guard Trey Alexander tried to throw a pass to senior guard Alex O’Connell. O’Connell, open for a 3-pointer, couldn’t corral the pass cleanly and tipped it into the air. And Agbaji was there to steal it away, before dribbling down the court and throwing down a breakaway dunk for Kansas in an eventual 79-72 victory.
If O’Connell had caught that pass cleanly, he said postgame he would have shot it. And on a day when the Bluejays were hitting 3s at an impressive rate to that point, the odds aren’t slim that the Jayhawks would have found themselves down for the first time since the tail end first half with the momentum squarely with Creighton (23-12). But O’Connell never got the opportunity to watch that shot fall, and Kansas (30-6) is advancing to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament instead.
“They were battling hard the whole game, credit to them,” said Agbaji, a senior guard. “But we just knew there was just those possessions that we knew we had to get, even late in the stretch, whether it was a rebound or executing a play, just to break away from getting in that range of them being close. But … I’m just proud of my team for today’s performance.”
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The Jayhawks led by as many as nine points in the second half, but the vast majority of the game never saw the teams further apart than two possessions. Kansas super-senior guard Remy Martin scored a season-high 20 points, with 16 coming in the first half, but if the shots weren’t free throws, the Jayhawks weren’t as consistent hitting them as a team as they have been at times this season. In a matter of hours, Kansas was nearly the second No. 1 seed to lose inside of Dickies Arena.
The Jayhawks just got just enough from redshirt sophomore forward Jalen Wilson, who had a 14-point, 14-rebound double-double, and others. Agbaji struggled to hit shots initially, but he scored 13 points in the second half to finish with 15. Kansas controlled the boards by a wide margin and doubled up Creighton in second-chance points.
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Bluejays freshman forward Arthur Kaluma scoring a season-high 24 points and tying a season-high with four made 3s didn’t sink the Jayhawks’ chances at a national title. Neither did quality play from O’Connell and Ryan Hawkins. Although 9-seed Creighton did finish 18-for-21 from the free-throw line, Kansas went 19-for-20 and got an offensive rebound off of the one free throw that missed in its best free-throw shooting performance of the season.
“It was a great game,” Jayhawks coach Bill Self said. “Creighton played great, shot unbelievable from the arc, and we didn’t do a very good job defending it the first half. But you got to win games when it’s kind of ugly, and I don’t know that we could have won this game two months ago playing this way.
“I’m proud of our guys. I thought we defended and rebounded, for the most part, most of the night. And then we had some guys step up and make some big free throws and some big plays late.”
Self isn’t going to apologize for winning the game, and he shouldn’t. As he said, he’s been a part of NCAA Tournament games like this before. There have been times he’s lost, and this just happened to be one in which he won.
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On the possession that followed Agbaji’s dunk in that final minute of the game, senior forward David McCormack blocked a shot by Alexander to deliver Kansas another key play defensively. It didn’t ice the game, in Self’s mind, but he did think it put the game out of reach. The Jayhawks made the requisite plays on defense, and hit free throws, to seal another victory in March.
Kansas has avoided going home with a loss in the round of 32, after both trips in 2019 and 2021 saw its NCAA Tournament runs end there. The last time it reached the Sweet 16, in 2018, it went all the way to the Final Four. And Self doesn’t think this team has played its best yet.
“I still believe we’ve got another gear, another step, we can take,” said Self, who highlighted Martin as the team’s biggest addition ahead of this season. “And even though teams can defend us a certain way and give us problems, I’ve said many times in the NCAA Tournament, and it happened with Creighton tonight, you’ve got to have some guys take some marginal shots and make them.”
Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. Contact him at [email protected] or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism