Jalen Wilson had his 18th team-MVP game of the season in his final college basketball game. He recorded half of KU’s game-MVP’s this season, the highest rate of any Jayhawk since Frank Mason’s 2017 season. His game-score for the Arkansas game was slightly-above his season average. K.J. Adams had a fine game himself despite foul trouble. It was his best outing since the home Baylor game in mid-February. Dejuan Harris was the other Jayhawk starter to produce positive value, although he wasn’t mistake-free (5 turnovers counting the 5 second inbounds and 10 second backcourt violations). Gradey Dick was guarded well by Arkansas, and he missed some chances to have a bigger impact. His defense wasn’t terrible, but he needed to score more than 7 points. Kevin McCullar had some big baskets in the second-half, but his negative-value game was due to his defense. He was assigned to stop Arkansas’s scorers and had a rough second-half on the defensive side of things.
The bench finished the season with the distinction of being Self’s worst in his 20-year tenure. Joe Yesufu hit a ridiculous first-half 3 to finish slightly above zero, and Bobby Pettiford’s steal and layup also catapulted him above bubble-level. The trio of Udeh/Clemence/Ejiofor was not at all productive and may have contributed to the loss as they tried to fill in for K.J. Adams’ foul trouble. There were a lot of factors that went into deciding the outcome.
A questionable foul call on McCullar with 23 ticks left sent Arkansas to the line, where they would take the lead for good. Had the blocking call been a charge, KU would have likely gone to OT at worst.
Charting the Hawks 