Kansas Basketball: Takeaways from Jayhawks win over Vermont
By Rylan Stiles
Kansas Basketball improved to 2-0 Monday Night beating Vermont in the team’s home opener. Here are the keys to the Jayhawks victory.
The Kansas Jayhawks come into Monday night as the number two ranked team in the nation and clear-cut Big 12 title favorites for what feels like the one billionth time. This was only the Jayhawks second game of the year, and first as the number two ranked team. Monday afternoon Kansas was leapfrogged by the Duke Blue Devils fresh off Duke’s two blow out wins over Kentucky and Army in the last week.
Vermont traveled to Lawerence unranked but came into the contest 1-0 with a win over Boston University. The Catamounts, however, are pegged to finish at worst top three in their mid-major conference. The Catamount fell a game short of returning to the NCAA Tournament a year ago when they lost in the conference title game to UMBC who would go on to top Virginia as the first 16 seed to ever knock off a one.
Although it is a mid-major squad rolling into Lawrence, Kansas it was not the typical pushover. This veteran Vermont squad showed they have been battle tested with how they weathered the Allen Field House storm at the beginning of the affair.
For Vermont sure, most of these games will wind up as losses in the win-loss column, but getting tested at Kansas and at Louisville, they will be provided experiences that will help the Catamounts later in the year.
After another terrible football season and another coach fired, finally, Kansas basketball is back in the swing of things with the first two-game week of the season. It feels like it was a lifetime ago the Jayhawks blitzed Michigan State in Indianapolis last Tuesday.