The Little Ball of Hate put in a bet for the Kansas-E. Illinois game thinking it would make an otherwise boring game interesting. Boy was he wrong.
It is a good way to analyze this game, through the bets.
Hunter continues to lead the Jayhawks.
The First Bet:
With Dickinson & Harris
Dickinson 17.5 points, 12.5 rebounds, Harris 6.5 assists, $5 pays out $24.00
I thought the assist part of that bet would be a piece of cake. But I thought Hunter Dickinson’s 17.5 points would be the issue, mainly because I thought the game would be out of hand, and he would be on the bench.
The Second Bet:
E. Illinois with points
E. Illinois + 39.5 points, $5 pays out $9.54
Hoping Kansas gets a solid win but not too dominating.
First Half
All starts well for Dickinson and Harris as well as for my bet. Harris finds Dickinson down low to give Kansas a 6-0 lead.
Another assist from Harris to Dickinson with 6:00 left to give KU a 29-15 lead. I like where this is going.
Nicolas Timberlake finally shows signs of life, and I’m sure Self was excited to see it after he transferred to Kansas from Towson. A three-pointer, followed by a good pump fake and a 17-footer. All in all, Timberlake had a good game: 5 points, 2 assists and 3 rebounds in 11 minutes.
At half, Kansas is up 38-25. Dickinson has 14 points and 9 rebounds add in Harris’s 5 assists. We are looking great all around. We're ahead but not by an obscene amount.
Second half
Starting the second half, I was worried the Jayhawks would do what they are known to do at home, which is go on a 20-2 run and put my spread bet in jeopardy. But if they did that, my other bet would definitely be solid, right?
Wrong on both counts. Instead, Kansas treated the basketball like a hot 🥔 and turned the ball over, adding in terrible shot choices. Meanwhile, the Panthers transform into the defending champion Connecticut Huskies and start raining down threes, hitting their 3rd three-pointer to start the second half with 12 minutes left, closing the deficit to 47-45.
So at this point, I am now abandoning cheering for my spread bet, because I don’t want to profit from a Kansas loss, especially agains EIU.
KJ Adams, who finished with 10 points, finishes a great pass from Harris.
Both of my bets get help with 5 minutes left as Harris and KJ Adams hook up on multiple alley-oops. On one of them, Harris found Adams from half-court, an amazing pass.
Hunter has his 18 points, and Harris is solid with his 7 assists, but I need one more damn rebound!
Finally, E. Illinois cools down and Kansas wakes up and acts like a No. 5 team. But I have to wait until 1:03 left in the game to get my 13th Dickinson rebound.
So all ends well, right? Whew! So Dickinson ends with 25 points, 13 rebounds and Harris 9 assists.
Well done Kansan staff. I used to do the design for those gameday papers. Great memories!
Some Positives
As the opposing starting lineup is announced in Allen Fieldhouse the student section holds up their Daily Kansan newspapers as though they could care less. At this game, the Kansan designed the paper to honor KJ Adams mom, Yvonne Adams, who died last week after battling cancer.
Except for the beginning of the second half Kansas took care of the ball much better, only 10 turnovers.
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