LAWRENCE, Kan. — Kansas’ men’s basketball team stretched its winning streak in home openers to 49 games by tripping Tarleton State of the Western Athletic Conference 88-62 on Friday night at Allen Fieldhouse.
Senior wing Ochai Agbaji followed his season-opening 29-point outburst against Michigan State with 25 points — 13 in the first half — as the Jayhawks improved to 2-0 on the young season. Agbaji hit 11 of 16 shots and grabbed six boards.
Christian Braun scored 15 points (with five blocks, five assists, eight rebounds), while Remy Martin scored 14 points (with six rebounds and three assists) and Jalen Coleman-Lands 10 points for the Jayhawks, who last lost a home opener in the 1972-73 season. That’s when Vanderbilt upended Ted Owens’ Jayhawks 72-64 on Dec. 2, 1972. David McCormack and Braun had five blocks apiece on defense for KU on Friday. Braun had seven rebounds.
KU coach Bill Self revealed before the game he spoke to Billy Gillispie’s Tarleton State team after the Texans’ shootaround on Friday in the fieldhouse. Gillispie is a good buddy of Self and in fact worked as an assistant on Self’s coaching staffs at Tulsa and Illinois.
“Billy said, ‘We’re coming after their head tonight.’ That’s the way it should be,” Self said on his pregame radio show. “We’ll be friends again after the game.”
The Jayhawks, who led by as many as 13 points the first half (37-24), led by single digits at half, 39-31. Tarleton’s Shamir Bogues (15) and Montre Gipson (14) combined for 29 of the 31 points for the visitors.
Bogues finished with 20 points and Gipson 19.
Martin and Braun had seven and six points respectively in the half for KU.
The Jayhawks raced to a 23-12 lead at 9:29 with some early highlight-reel plays. Senior forward David McCormack forcibly swatted two Tarleton shots, and freshman guard Bobby Pettiford accepted a pass from Mitch Lightfoot, drove, hung in the air, scored and was fouled to give KU a 21-12 lead. He missed the free throw.
Also, freshman forward KJ Adams followed a Martin miss with a hard slam dunk, and Martin drove and banked in a 5-footer as he was falling to the ground. Martin also took a charge, and Agbaji had a hard block late in the half.
KU’s Agbaji skied to put home an alley-oop pass from Martin early in the second half. Also, Braun drove the baseline for a one-handed slam. However KU led just 50-41 at 15:28.
KU led by 15 in the second half (56-41) after a remarkable play by Coleman-Lands. He saved the ball from going out of bounds, and after heading back in bounds he hit a deep 3. However it remained just 56-45 at 10:03.
