INDIANAPOLIS — Jalen Wilson was exhausted from an offense that was continuously running through him on Tuesday night at the Champions Classic. This was Wilson’s night to show he was the new Ochai Agbaji. To show he could be the veteran star on the night that’s annually turned into the first chance to see the new and shiny objects at Duke or Kentucky.
While those future lottery picks draw the eyeballs, it’s Kansas that’s making it an annual tradition to head home with a win. The Jayhawks have now won six of their last seven Champions Classic contests. On this night, it appeared they were going to either ride Wilson to the win or live with him running out of bullets. Wilson fired up 26 shots in 38 minutes, and his reserve was running low in those final minutes. “Maaaaan,” he said after when asked if he felt the need for someone else — anyone — to give him an assist.
The savior, most will tell you, was KU’s own new and shiny star: Gradey Dick.
Dick was phenomenal for a 78-second stretch that saw him give Kansas the lead for good with a transition 3, an alley-oop finish and a how-did-he-make-that right-handed scoop with reverse spin that kissed off the glass.
But somewhere in Indianapolis, Kansas coach Bill Self was probably telling anyone that would listen the man who secured this 69-64 win over seventh-ranked Duke was his fourth-year junior point guard Dajuan Harris.
“When he’s out there,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer said, “they’re poised.”
And in that 78-second stretch that flipped the script on what was looking like Scheyer’s night, Harris was the hero in the shadows. He had the assist on Dick’s alley-oop. Then he got the Jayhawks the ball right back, anticipating Duke point guard Jeremy Roach’s move, taking a shoulder right in the chest and pointing the other direction with both his index fingers as he slid on his backside across the Gainbridge Fieldhouse floor.
On the ensuing possession, Harris got the ball to Wilson, which was where it was supposed to be, but Wilson wisely passed it out when there was nothing there. Dick ended up scoring his circus layup on a broken play. And after Roach missed the front-end of a one-and-one, KU got the ball back with a three-point lead and chance to ice it. Stand-in coach Norm Roberts put the ball back in Harris’s hands. He made the perfect pick-and-roll read, hitting KJ Adams on the roll for an and-one with 22.2 seconds left.
“He’s the best point guard I’ve ever played with,” Dick said. “He always finds you when you barely even feel open, and he’ll just find a way to get you the ball. He’s definitely one of a kind.”
“The thing that makes Dajuan so good is he has unbelievable poise,” Roberts said, using that word again. “He stays poised throughout the whole game.”
He is the man whom Self trusts more than any other, the one whom the coach tasked with sparking what would be the biggest comeback in championship game history back in April. “You’re going to key the whole thing,” Self told his point guard that night at halftime against North Carolina. “They’re not gonna be able to run offense because of you.”
GO DEEPER
Watching the NCAA title game with Kansas coach Bill Self: ‘We were pretty fortunate’
This new iteration of Kansas, it appears, will be powered by a defense that has the potential to be the best Self’s had in years. Harris is a pest — those were Scheyer’s words — and his confidence in his defensive abilities is only growing. Kevin McCullar was already one of the best defenders in the Big 12, and he’s quickly adapting to KU’s system. He’s really good on the ball, and few are better at playing free safety off the ball. Then the Jayhawks have an army of athletic bigs patrolling the paint. They had 13 blocked shots against the Blue Devils, who are one of the tallest teams in the country.
Few teams will be able to figure out where the holes are. Scheyer deserves credit for how he moved the chess pieces early in the second half and picked on mismatches. His first target: Dick. That’s why he sat on the bench for a nearly six-minute stretch before it became apparent to Roberts he needed offense outside of Wilson.
Dick, to his credit, had a deflection that resulted in a Duke turnover and the steal that led to his first 3. He has room for improvement defensively, but against most teams Self will be able to hide him. Not every opponent has a bunch of future pros.
The Jayhawks will need him, because this team might go through some stretches where it’s tough to score. Both Wilson and McCullar can be streaky with their jumpers. Kansas no longer has a reliable post-up threat, and every night with these young bigs could be an adventure. Some good. Some bad. Some puzzling.
The constant will be Harris getting the ball where it needs to go — on this night, he had 10 assists and just one turnover — and that’ll be made a lot easier if Dick is on the floor.
Pull back and look at the whole picture on that final and-one to Adams, and you see that it was the respect for Dick that opened up the entire right side of the floor.
Dick is already that feared. Wilson says his teammates believe every shot he takes is going in, and he’s in such control of his shot that when he lets one fly that isn’t all net, he can feel it. Like that transition 3? “Honestly,” he said afterward, “it felt a little off.”
The great thing about Dick is he thinks the next one will be pure. And he’s going to look even better because he has a point guard like Harris who knows where and when to get him the ball.
As most college basketball teams are in November, it’s still a work in progress. But Self is as good an architect there is in the game these days. He’d love to get as many five-stars as Duke and Kentucky, but proven experience is what he usually has and what wins.
And when it looked bleak on Tuesday, one team had Harris and Wilson and the other came unraveled.
The KU veterans wisely kept telling their teammates to not overreact to any one play and not take any hero shots. “We got to play our game and make them play bad,” Wilson said was the mindset.
He and Harris know that’s how you win a championship. The Jayhawks are far from dreaming about going back-to-back yet, but they’re starting from a good spot. It’s nice to feel that pressure early and deliver.
And for Wilson, it’s a luxury to know in those moments, he has Harris in his corner.
“Our point guard is one of the scrappiest guys on the floor,” Wilson said. “There’s 10 guys on the floor, and I know if I got to choose one guy to scrap with, it’s gonna be Juan.”
(Photo of Dajuan Harris: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
