KU cruises past UCLA, earns spot in Maui championship game

Bill Self is a numbers guy. He may try to conceal this fact from time to time, shielding himself in a guise of toughness, offering never-ending rhetoric about defense and rebounding and finding ways to win basketball games in ugly fashion. But beneath the surface, Self’s mind operates like a steel trap, processing box scores in a matter of seconds, calculating numbers like rebounding percentages and turnover percentages in the seconds before his postgame news conference.

On Monday night here in Lahaina, less than 24 hours before No. 5 Kansas would demolish UCLA 92-73 in the Maui Invitational semifinals on Tuesday, Self was asked about his team’s proclivity to clip off shots from three-point range in this young season. The Jayhawks had put up 29 attempts from deep on Monday, making 15, and Self, a coach who relishes playing inside-out basketball, was asked if he was comfortable with the three-point heavy offense.

“Instead of looking at how many threes you shoot,” Self said, “you look at what percentage of threes you shot (compared to your total field-goal attempts).”

A second later, Self glanced down at a box score and did the math in his head. The Jayhawks had taken close to 38 percent of their shots from three.

“So that is a lot of threes,” Self said.

But here’s the thing: After another dazzling offensive performance on Tuesday, this may be a calculation Self is forced to make all season long. One night after putting up the most points of the Self era, the Jayhawks ran the Bruins out the gym, burying them with an onslaught of three-pointers and senior forward Perry Ellis.

Ellis finished with a season-high 24 points while drilling 9 of 12 from the field, and the Jayhawks clipped off another 23 three-point attempts, hitting 10 threes on the night. For the season, the Jayhawks are taking close to 33 percent of their shots from three-point range, in part because they have seen plenty of zone here in Maui. But that number would be one of the highest three-point attempt rates of the Self era, and for the moment, it appears to be a winning formula.

In 80 minutes of basketball here in Maui, the Jayhawks have put up 215 points, and they will carry their torrid offensive pace into Wednesday’s championship game, where they will meet No. 19 Vanderbilt, 5-0.

In the opening half on Tuesday, Kansas offered a master class in breaking down the UCLA zone. The Jayhawks shot 57 percent from the floor, buried eight three-pointers, and junior guard Frank Mason cut up the Bruins’ defense with a series of crisp passes and playmaking. In one sequence, Mason assisted on three straight three-pointers. When the night was over, he had finished with 16 points, seven assists and five rebounds.

For most of the night, Wayne Selden was a primary beneficiary of Mason’s brilliant play. Selden drilled 4 of 5 from three-point range, finished with 15 points and stream-lined his offense game, limiting his turnovers (one) and wasteful drives to the basket.

Earlier on Tuesday night, Vanderbilt wiped out Wake Forest 86-64, erasing the prospect of Kansas icon and current Wake coach Danny Manning meeting KU in the Maui final. The Commodores, though, offer their own intrigue. Vanderbilt was picked to finish second in the Southeast Conference, behind No. 1 Kentucky, and Vandy coach Kevin Stallings once spent five years as a KU assistant to Roy Williams from 1988 to 1993.

The Jayhawks, in fact, haven’t played Vanderbilt since December 1997, when the two teams met at the Rainbow Classic in Honolulu. That will change on Wednesday, and we’ll know the answer to at least one question: Can anybody slow down this Kansas offense here in Maui?

This story was originally published November 24, 2015 at 11:21 PM with the headline "KU cruises past UCLA, earns spot in Maui championship game."