KJ Adams’ aggressiveness can be seen in many different ways. His impact is often not seen on the stat sheet and his scoring output is not the biggest contributing factor to his success.
Against Duke on Tuesday, Adams finished with just eight points on six shots. However, he also added three blocks and three steals. His defensive impact on Duke’s star Cooper Flagg was felt. Bill Self said postgame Adams showed he can be an elite player without being a prolific scorer.
Adams dominated Kansas’ 86-51 win over Furman in a different fashion. He finished with 22 points on 10/12 shooting. The 22 points matched his career-high and he also tallied a season-high six rebounds.
“If he’s not Big 12 Player of the Week this week, I don’t know that anybody ever would deserve it,” Bill Self said postgame.
Self said he didn’t get many opportunities to score against Duke, but converted those chances at a high level against Furman. Only one of Adams’ shots against the Paladins came from outside the paint.
“KJ scored tonight and how many shots did he make outside of three feet?” Self asked. “He played to his athletic ability and strength. Against Duke, he didn’t get those same opportunities so he had to actually use his skill to score against Duke. I think he’s played at a pretty high level.”
Adams knew coming into the game that he would have a mismatch against a smaller Furman team. He credited Dajuan Harris for creating the mindset to become an aggressive scorer.
“Juan told me to kind of push it down them a little bit because they’re a little small,” Adams said. “So just try to get into their chest and make some layups.”
Harris has done a lot for Adams’ mindset. Adams said that it’s Harris who is constantly pushing him to be aggressive, no matter what that definition might mean.
“Dajuan helps me with a lot of that stuff,” Adams said. “He always tells me, in practice, be aggressive, be aggressive, whatever that is. But a game like this really favored me in the inside, so that’s kind of what I did to help us win today.”
Kansas exploited its advantage in the paint throughout the game. The Jayhawks finished with 62 points in the paint. While there were times when they struggled to shoot from outside, they couldn’t be stopped close to the basket.
“I feel like this game [three-point shooting] shouldn’t matter, because we should’ve gave the ball inside vs that team,” Harris said.
Adams has always been known as a high-intensity player, but he’s looked very turned up over Kansas’ two games this week. He said he feels like he’s back at 100% after an ankle injury had been bugging him earlier this year.
- OLB
- PRO
- APB
- WR
- ATH
- RB
- WDE
- CB
- ATH
- WR