Kansas crushes UCLA in Maui semifinals

The Rebels (4-1) face IN in the fifth-place game at 2 p.m. PT Wednesday. Trailing by four after a first half in which its offense looked out of sorts, Kansas outscored Vanderbilt 44-33 in the second half to earn its fourth win of the season.

Kansas won this tournament in 1996 and title No. 2 came with wins over St. John’s, Wake Forest and the Commodores. We haven’t been doing that exactly.

In a game that featured five lead changes, Isaac Hamilton helped UCLA (3-1) secure the lead for good with a 3-point field goal that gave the Bruins a 67-65 cushion with 3:23 to play.

“Like I said, I’m going to leave here with a lot more positive thoughts and a lot more positive feelings than I am negative”, Stallings said. “They come at you in waves and we didn’t think they would shoot from the outside the way they did”. UCLA coerced UNLV into 29 3-point attempts in their first-round game and the Rebels made nine, two in the final nine seconds of desperation time. “Our basketball team played very, very well”.

“Why don’t we forget about this game and just play another one?” “We just went through some stretches where we didn’t execute as well as we needed to execute against their zone”.

ABOUT VANDERBILT (5-0): Jeff Roberson has provided some valuable bench minutes in the tournament, totaling 11 points and 13 rebounds against St. John’s and 10 points and seven rebounds against Wake Forest. Vanderbilt was 4 for 10 from the field over the same span. “We will celebrate on the bus but once we get to the hotel property we will be getting ready for Vanderbilt, another good team”.

There wasn’t much the Jayhawks did wrong in breaking the game open early.

Welsh finished 9 of 12 from the field. “I think he has tremendous upside”.

Backup point guard Aaron Holliday went 8-for-8 by himself in the final 1:30, and the difference between UCLA’s trips to the line and UNLV’s 14-of-22 effort was enormous.

Kiran Shastri had 19 points for the Silverswords (0-5).

“I feel very confident about this team”, McCaw said.

For a night, though, Kansas was able to get back to basketball. We used to be a team that scores off the catch. “We are nowhere near a finished product, but in our last two games we have taken positive steps in the right direction”.

UCLA and Kansas will faceoff in the seminfinals of the Maui Invitational. Goodluck Okonoboh was called for goaltending on consecutive UCLA possessions, giving the Bruins a 27-22 lead….

The Silverswords trailed the Red Storm by 17 points at halftime. UCLA edged UNLV, 77-75, to reach the semifinals. The Jayhawks committed only three turnovers and outrebounded the Bruins 23-15.

The Johnnies escape the Maui Invitational with one victory. KU has won the last three battles with the last being in the semifinals of the 2011 Maui Invitational, a KU 72-56 win.