Kansas vs Kentucky: No. 14 Jayhawks Rout the Wildcats 89-69 in the Champions Classic Nightcap as Stokes and White Take Over
Kentucky led 10-5 and then lost every category that matters: 15 turnovers turned into 22 Kansas points, a 40-35 beating on the glass, and 38-to-19 percent from three - a 20-point rout in Chicago to close the doubleheader.
No. 14 Kansas routed Kentucky 89-69 on Tuesday night at the United Center in Chicago, closing the Champions Classic doubleheader with the night's most lopsided result. The Jayhawks, playing without senior guard Melvin Council Jr., trailed 10-5 in the opening minutes and then took the game away, leading 46-36 at halftime and by as many as 22 in the second half.
The takeover came from the two names the Topeka Capital-Journal's live report kept returning to. Tyran Stokes - the freshman who considered both schools before choosing Kansas - was up to 19 points with 11:24 left in the second half, and Tre White reached 17, with 10 of them after halftime, as Kansas pushed a 65-49 lead out of reach. Zoom Diallo led Kentucky, and all scorers, with 24 points, but his was a one-man file: the Wildcats never found a second answer.
The team numbers, from the USA TODAY network's Kentucky report, explain the margin. Kentucky turned the ball over 15 times, and Kansas turned those into 22 points. Kansas out-rebounded Kentucky 40-35, including 12-8 on the offensive glass, out-shot the Wildcats from three-point range 38 percent to 19 percent, and led 24-13 in assists. Kentucky's early foul trouble set the tone: Malachi Moreno, who had Kentucky scoring inside in the 10-5 start, picked up his second foul inside the first four minutes and sat, and Kansas ran at the smaller lineup that replaced him.
Both teams entered 2-0 - Kansas off home wins over Fordham (95-65) and Middle Tennessee (89-45), Kentucky off Manhattan (85-57) and James Madison (89-80) - and only one of them leaves Chicago looking like its ranking undersold it. Kansas is 3-0 with a 20-point win over a blue blood on a neutral floor; Kentucky, which struggled in non-conference games against Power Four teams last season, has the same questions the Wildcats Wire flagged in its report: turnovers, rebounding, and an offense that stalls when Diallo is contained.
