Preview: Kansas at Iowa State

Here's one for the Friday afternoon crowd... Iowa State is a bad defensive team. They don't force their opponents into bad shots. They don't rebound those shots their opponents miss. They put their opponents on the free throw line a lot. To their credit, they do create more turnovers than almost any other team in the nation. Unfortunately, that's only mostly good news for the Jayhawks.


Furthermore, the Cyclones have held only Missouri below 55 eFG% in conference play and in that game, they still sent the Tigers to the line 32 times. Missouri's 58 points had more to do with missing 18 free throws than outstanding Cyclone defense. In fact, Iowa State has allowed conference opponents a little over one free throw attempt for every two field goal attempts. That's an even higher rate of free throws allowed than Texas A&M had entering Wednesday night's game. Iowa State is allowing 1.08 points per possession in conference play despite their opponents shooting only 62.5% from the free throw line. There defense may be even worse than it initially appears.

To the extent the Cyclones make up for their poor results in three of the four defensive factors they do so by forcing turnovers. Conference opponents have turned the ball over on 28.1% of their possessions. In comparison, Kansas, even with national steal rate leader Mario Chalmers and 53rd ranked Russell Robinson (Jeremy really wrecked my reveal on that link.), are only forcing turnovers on 24.3% of opponents' possessions in conference play. On the offensive end of the court Kansas hasn't really cured their predilection for turning the ball over, but they have minimized the negative effects of the turnovers by forcing more turnovers themselves and getting their better free throw shooters the bulk of the team's free throw attempts.

Also, bear in mind Kansas fans, that Kansas State turned the ball over on 34.6% of their possessions in Ames and still scored 1.01 points per possession (that's about 11% more efficient than the Wildcat offense was in their win in Lawrence) and Texas Tech turned the ball over on 31% of their possession against Iowa State and scored 1.18 points per possession. Kansas will commit turnovers, but they're unlikely to cost the Jayhawks the game.

Everyone knows that Iowa State's offense is largely a two man show. Curtis Stinson is the volume scorer. Will Blalock scores almost as many points, and does so much more efficiently, while getting the role players involved. I think Kansas can do a decent job defensively on Stinson and Blalock, especially if the shot-blocking big men (Giles, Wright, and Kaun) can stay on the floor. Robinson and Chalmers should be able to do a better job than previous Jayhawk guards of limiting Stinson's forays into the lane, but they're not going keep him out of the lane altogether, and he's going to push off (and get away with it) to create space. If the big men can alter Stinson's shots (and if another big man or Rush cleans up the defensive glass) without fouling him, they should be able to hold Iowa State to around a point per possession. Stinson uses about 30% of his team's possessions himself when he's on the floor. Iowa State's role players are generally efficient when they get a chance to shoot the ball, so it's imperative that the Jayhawks limit Stinson's efficiency first.


The Cyclones will force the Jayhawks to outscore them. If Kansas can display a little patience against the Iowa State zone (hopefully with a heavy dose of Julian Wright's passing and athleticism) they'll get good looks. Kansas has shot the ball extremely well in their last three games. Though I doubt they're good enough to shoot that well consistently for the rest of the year, Iowa State may help keep the Kansas shooters hot for one more game.

Prediction: Kansas 72 Iowa State 68