Texas Basketball vs. Kansas: 5 bold predictions for clash in Lawrence

Texas holds Kansas to fewer than four bench points

To say the very least, bench scoring is not Kansas’ forte this season. Kansas ranks dead last in the Big 12 in bench points per game in conference play and for the season altogether.

In fact, Kansas is averaging fewer than 10 bench points per game this season, which is also nearly the worst of any Division I college hoops team in the country.

Texas should have a big edge in terms of its bench scoring advantage in this game. While Kansas has the worst bench in terms of offensive output on a game-by-game basis, Texas has the bench. Texas ranks at the top of the Big 12, averaging nearly 27 bench points per game in conference play this year.

To make matters worse for Kansas in this game, it doesn’t have the depth to defend teams that have deep benches either. Kansas is a rotation that you can barely say goes six or seven players deep.

There is only one reserve player for the Jayhawks that is even averaging more than three points per game this season, which is senior guard Joseph Yesufu. And the trends for Kansas’ bench production get even worse in Big 12 play, as Yesufu is only averaging 3.1 points per game in conference play while shooting a poor 30 percent from the field.

Another reason why I believe Texas will have a major advantage in terms of depth in this game is this team’s ability to limit opponents’ bench scoring. Texas leads the Big 12 in opponent bench points per game in Big 12 play, at a clip of fewer than 14.

Texas’ ability to defend the opposing team’s reserves has only gotten better in the last 10 games too. This team has barely allowed opposing benches to put up more than a dozen points per game in the last 10 outings.

All in all, the drastic difference in bench production for each of these two teams of late adds up to a drastic advantage for the Longhorns in this game.