In a game that meant nothing to the conference race, which KU had already clinched, the Jayhawks played flat in Austin and got beat on Texas’ senior day by 16. Jalen Wilson had another great outing in a game when his teammates played poorly. The TEAM’s Game Score of -6.19 (meaning this performance was 6.19 points worse than the expected performance for a bubble team) was its third-worst game of the season and its 7th negative game out of 31.
In these 7 games, Jalen Wilson is averaging a game score of +9.00, whereas the others are collectively at -15.94 for the season. Jalen is having a good season, his current Adj. PPG +/- number is +5.53, but the fact he has raised his game to a high level when others aren’t picking up the slack is impressive. He helped KU win a few of these poorly played games earlier in the season (Southern Utah, Wisconsin).
Gradey Dick had his worst game of the year and has produced negative value over his past 10 games. On the flip side, Dejuan Harris is showing he can provide value even in games where he shoots poorly. Despite managing just 5 points and multiple missed shots, Harris assisted nicely (without turning it over) and defended strongly against Texas’ veteran guards. Kevin McCullar also had a nice defensive game to end slightly above-bubble. K.J. Adams was slightly below-bubble.
The bench had another poor outing, as Bobby Pettiford played the worst of the lot. Only Naadir Tharpe (2012), Justin Wesley (2012), and Stephen Vinson (2006) have had worse Per100 seasons than Bobby out of all rotation players since 2006. (M.J. Rice is also on this list, right next to Pettiford). But Bobby’s played the most out of these names, at 27% of available minutes.
Charting the Hawks 