LAWRENCE, Kan. — Ochai Agbaji made four 3-pointers and shot 70% from the field and No. 5 Kansas cruised past Omaha 95-50 on Friday night in their final tune-up fixture before opening Big 12 league play.
Agbaji finished with 18 point and five rebounds to pace the Jayhawks, who won their sixth straight game since going down to top-ranked Gonzaga in the season opener on Thanksgiving Day.
“Last game was a rough game,” said Agbaji who was held scoreless by Creighton in the win earlier this week. “My teammates knew it.
“I’ll give it to them, they did the best job of keeping me confident and up during the practice days, and keeping me up for this game, so my mindset wasn’t any different going into this game.”
After outscoring Omaha 45-22 in the first half, Kansas outpaced the visitors 50-28 in the second half, closing out the contest with 10-0 run over the last 1:57 and making 5-for-5 shots from the field during that run. The visitors were held without a points in the last 2:14 of the game.
Mitch Lightfoot jumped off the bench to score a career-best 14 points to go with seven rebounds and fellow reserve Tyon Grant-Foster ended with 13 points, seven rebounds, two blocks and two steals for the Jayhawks (6-1) to improve to 4-0 this season in front of about 2,500 fans at Allen Fieldhouse.
David McCormack supported with a double-double of 11 points and 11 rebounds, while Jalen Wilson was held to nine points and seven rebounds and Marcus Garrett ended with eight assists and five rebounds in 20 minutes for Kansas.
Wanjang Tut scored 14 points with five rebounds and Jadin Booth had 11 to paced Omaha (2-5), which shot 4 of 20 from the 3-point range and made 17-of-62 shots overall.
The Mavericks leading scorer Matt Pile, who had to adjust his game after struggling with foul trouble for much of the game, was stifled for just six points on 2-for-7 shooting.
Kansas, meanwhile, shot 47.9% and took 71 shots, dominated in almost all the areas, including outrebounding Omaha 54-31 and forcing the visitors to commit 15 turnovers.
The Mavericks allowed 42 points in the paint and scored just 16, while giving away 28 second chance points.
“You know, Kansas, obviously very talented,” Omaha coach Derrin Hansen said. “They pose a lot of problems for teams like us, and coming in here short-handed didn’t help, but that being said, we didn’t take care of things we needed to do better.”
Kansas will now turn its attention to Big 12 conference play on Thursday night at No. 17 Texas Tech. The Jayhawks were slated to close out their five-game homestand against Tarleton State on Sunday, but the game was canceled due to a COVID-19 positive test within the travelers camp.
The Mavericks will visit Wyoming on Wednesday night for their next fixture.
