LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - Kyan Anderson kept TCU in the game in the first half. Unfortunately for the Horned Frogs, he was unable to maintain his scoring binge against No. 7 Kansas.
Anderson had 21 of his 25 points before the break, but the Jayhawks pulled away for a 95-65 victory Saturday.
“I was in a rhythm early and they did a good job of stopping me in the second half, getting it out of my hands and not giving me too many options,” Anderson said. “It was obvious what they were trying to do. I felt like they did a pretty good job at it.”
Perry Ellis had a career-high 32 points for Kansas (19-6, 10-2 Big 12). Andrew Wiggins added 17 points and Wayne Selden Jr. finished with 15.
“We don’t have a matchup for (Ellis) because he’s a pro,” TCU coach Trent Johnson said. “You’ve got to pick your poison with this team.”
Playing without injured center Joel Embiid and suspended forward Brannen Greene, Kansas got off to a slow start but still managed to take a 47-40 lead into the break. The Jayhawks then used a 13-1 charge out of the locker room to put away the Horned Frogs (9-15, 0-12) for the sixth time in seven meetings.
TCU still has not won since knocking off Texas Southern on Dec. 29.
“We competed probably as well as we had for a while,” Johnson said. “They just wore us down.”
Anderson did all he could, and Amric Fields added 12 points for the Horned Frogs. But a team that’s been depleted by injuries simply wasn’t able to hang with the depth of the Jayhawks.
That depth came in handy, too, with a couple regulars sitting out.
Embiid, who has emerged as one of the nation’s top NBA prospects, has been dealing with ankle and back injuries that have limited his floor time the last several weeks. He didn’t practice in the run-up to TCU and wound up watching from the bench, though he routinely leaped out of his seat to celebrate the myriad of alley-oop dunks that highlighted the Jayhawks’ second half.
Meanwhile, Greene sat next to Embiid on the bench for what a school spokesman described as a “pattern of irresponsible behavior.”
“We can have slippage from a responsibility standpoint and that’s what happened to him,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “I would rather try to have their heads right early in their career than I would be lax and trying to get them back later.”
Reserve forward Jamari Traylor got back on the court and finished with a career-high 10 points and eight rebounds. The sophomore was held out of Monday night’s overtime loss to Kansas State for what Self also had described as irresponsible behavior. The two of them spoke Thursday and Self decided to let Traylor play.
Self turned to Traylor when Tarik Black, who started in Embiid’s place, picked up two fouls in the opening 2 minutes. It was part of a miserable early stretch for Kansas that included a 1-for-7 performance from the foul line and very little defense.
Of course, the Horned Frogs had a hand in that performance.
Anderson was 7 of 8 from the field and 5 for 5 from the foul line in the first half, and TCU - which came in shooting a Big 12-worst 40.9 percent - was hitting at a 56.5-percent clip.
Then the second half started, and the Jayhawks began playing above the rim.
Black, Wiggins and Selden each were on the finishing end of alley-oop passes during what turned into a 23-5 run, giving Kansas a 70-45 lead midway through the second half. The Jayhawks also turned up the defensive pressure, denying Anderson the ball.
“Offensively, we missed a couple of shots and it trickled down to the defensive end,” he said. “They just came out, a lot of intensity on D, which led to easy baskets on offense.”
Johnson burned through a series of timeouts, but none seemed to quiet a star-studded crowd that included several NBA stars and Barbara Eden of “I Dream of Jeannie” fame.
The Jayhawks started to empty the bench with about five minutes left, shortly after Ellis knocked down a 3-pointer from the corner and the crowd started chanting his name.
“He was great,” Self said. “He made shots, stretched it, then made mid-range shots, took the ball strong to the hole. I think one of his two misses he got back. He was without question our best player today. Other guys played well offensively, but certainly nobody played like Perry.”
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