LAWRENCE, Kan. – Fresh off its 69-65 win against No. 4 Connecticut, No. 2 Kansas (7-1) will play its third of four-straight home games when it hosts Kansas City (3-5) on Tuesday, Dec. 5. Tip from Allen Fieldhouse will be at 7 p.m. CT and the game will be televised on Big 12 NOW via ESPN+.
Kansas is 7-1 for the 10th-straight season beginning in 2014-15. The Jayhawks are the only team in NCAA Division I to be able to claim a 7-1 or better record each of the last 10 seasons. Kansas City ended a five-game losing streak with a 74-44 win against Southeast Missouri State on Nov. 30.
Kansas and Kansas City are meeting for the ninth time in a series that began in 1992. Kansas has won all eight previous meetings with the most recent being Dec. 14, 2019, a 98-57 KU win at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City.
Kansas enters Tuesday’s contest averaging 79.8 points per game with a plus-15.0 scoring margin. The Jayhawks pull down 38.9 rebounds per outing with a plus-1.1 rebound margin. Kansas leads the nation in assists per game at 22.8 and in field goal percentage (53.6%). KU also averages 6.8 steals and 5.1 blocked shots per contest.
On most every national player of the year watch list, senior center Hunter Dickinson leads Kansas in scoring at 20.9 ppg and leads the nation in rebounds per game at 12.2 rpg. He is one of only two players in the Big 12 to average a double-double. Named the Big 12 Player and Newcomer of the Week Nov. 20, Dickinson is 11-for-17 (64.7%) from three-point range and leads KU with 12 blocked shots and 11 steals.
Named the Big 12 Player of the Week and an Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week Nov. 28, graduate-senior Kevin McCullar Jr. leads the nation in triple doubles with two. He is second on the KU team in scoring at 18.5 points per contest after his 21 points versus UConn (12/1). McCullar is tied with Dickinson with a team-high 11 threes made.
Junior KJ Adams Jr. leads the Big 12 and is fifth nationally in field goal percentage at 71.2%. Coming off a season-high 18 points against UConn (12/1), Adams averages 11.8 points and 3.6 rebounds per contest.
Redshirt-senior Dajuan Harris Jr. leads the Big 12 with 7.2 assists per game, which is fourth nationally. Harris averages 5.8 points per contest. Freshman Elmarko Jackson (5.8 ppg, 3.4 assists per game) rounds out the KU starters. Other KU regulars include Furphy (5.9 ppg, 10 3FGs), graduate-senior Nicolas Timberlake (3.6 ppg), graduate-senior Parker Braun (3.3 ppg, 2.4 rpg, eight blocked shots), and freshman Jamari McDowell (2.9 ppg, 2.1 rpg).
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Kansas will play host to Missouri in the HyVee Hoops Border Showdown, on Saturday, Dec. 9, at 4:15 p.m. (Central). The game from Allen Fieldhouse will be televised on ESPN.
These two former league rivals met for the first time in 2021 after not playing a regular-season contest since Feb. 2012. This series dates back to 1908 and Kansas leads 176-95. KU has won four-straight and nine of the last 10 meetings with MU.
