Dajuan Harris’ career high of 23 points came after he did not shoot in the opening game of the season when Kansas took on North Carolina Central and scored just two points in the win over Manhattan.

“They be like shoot. I will when I need too,” Harris said on his Instagram story shortly after the game against North Carolina Central.

Against Kentucky, he needed to shoot it, doing so 12 times while helping the Jayhawks to an 89-84 win.

“That was big boy basketball,” Harris said after the game. “You know that's always a dogfight every time we play them. I think they wanted me to beat them. They left me open and then I just had to step up and make a shot.”

Harris made his first five attempts from three-point range, going 5-for-6 on the night. He had to hoist up his last attempt because the shot clock was about to expire, ruining what would have been his second career 5-for-5 performance.

When he pulled the feat off on the road against Texas Tech last season, he only scored 18 points and had just three assists. Against Kentucky, he managed to do a lot more outside of his five threes compared to the first time he did it, as he had seven assists.

Harris not only scored more points than he ever has, he did it in a timely manner too. Every three he made on the night had a significance beyond the three points that were added to the board.

The realization that Harris was going to need to shoot came from the first points of the game when he made his first three after Kentucky’s Justin Edwards closed out short on him, daring him to let it go. He launched the shot with over 20 seconds on the shot clock, proving that he would not be scared to pull the trigger in this game.

His second three came right in the middle of the flurry of Kentucky threes that could have put the Jayhawks in a position that they would have been unable to climb out of. Kentucky scored 15 points in the blink of an eye with five of their own three pointers, but because of a Hunter Dickinson lay up and Harris’ second three, Kansas was only down six once the spurt was over.

Kansas’ biggest deficit of the night was 14 when they trailed 58-44, but it was Harris who made a three to start the rally. The shot started a 18-4 run to tie it up in just over four minutes.

Kansas was down six with 3:46 to go before he made threes on back-to-back possessions, followed by a pair of free throws to level the score with 2:34 to go.

The first three came after he faked a pass to free up space around him, as the Kentucky defense respected his passing ability too much on the play.

Head coach Bill Self, who had a couple of options to say who his best performer on the night was as Kevin McCullar had a triple-double and Hunter Dickinson had 27 points and 21 rebounds. However, it was easy for him to make a decision on who was the best player for him late in the game.

“He was the best player in the game down the stretch without question,” Self said