Bruins Get Jayhawk’d By Kansas In The Maui Invitational

Mullin’s squad responded with solid ball movement, including a handsome post pass from Sima to Mussini for an And-1 with 6:24 remaining, and enough free throw shooting down the stretch to pull out the win. He may try to hide 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. UCLA is coached by Steve Alford who is 53-24 in his third season at UCLA and 516-259 in his 25th season overall.

The Runnin’ Rebels went 9 of 29 from 3-point range, while the Bruins were 4 of 10.

Durand Johnson (Baltimore, Md.) added a career-high 18 points and Amar Alibegovic (Rome, Italy) notched a career-best 17 points.

KU coach Bill Self applauds KU’s first half in 92-73 win over UCLA in the Maui Invitational semifinals. Now Chaminade doesn’t have anyone as talented as Valentine, but if Kansas wants to be an elite team this is the type of game where they need to assert themselves defensively.

“However, the star of the Maui tournament for Wake has been 6’3” point guard Bryant Crawford who hit the game winning shot against IN on Day 1. Lucas leads the team with 7.3 rebounds despite only playing 13.3 minutes per game and his rebounding ability might be big in this one because UCLA has posted a plus 10.2 rebounding margin so far this season.

The sophomore barely touched the floor last season but is in the midst of a breakout season, including 20 points, eight rebounds and two blocks against the Rebels. Junior G Isaac Hamilton (8.0 ppg, 5.8 rpg) rounds out the UCLA starters.

UCLA holds a 10-7 advantage over Kansas in a series which started in 1958.

Betting Odds: Kansas (-2.5, -110) via Sportsbook.

UCLA was almost flawless from the free throw line and that got the Bruins a berth in the semifinals of the Maui Jim Maui Invitational.

With today’s game, St. John’s’ time in paradise on the island of Maui came to an end as the Johnnies faced off against the invitational hosts of Chaminade in a battle for the seventh place in the invitational standings.

Vanderbilt: The Commodores won this tournament in 1986, led by center Will Perdue…. Those Hoosiers were inexperienced and overmatched – mirror opposites of the group he traveled west with this week – and left with the same tournament record: 1-2. But you come (to Maui) as a group, as a team, trying to find out your identity, trying to see who in your program has toughness, who can bounce back? Diallo will be available to play in the Jayhawks’ next game at home December 1 against Loyola (Md.). Seven Jayhawks scored in double figures against Chaminade. KU would later advance to the 2012 Final Four finishing runner-up.

Hawaii-wise, Kansas has also played in three Rainbow Classics as well in 1986-87, 1992-93 and 1997-98. “That was, ‘just get through the game.’ Offensively, we were bad against Michigan State – bad the second half, but other than that we’ve actually moved the ball pretty well and shot pretty well the majority of the season”.