Flory Bidunga scored 25 points on 10-of-11 shooting to go with 10 rebounds and No. 25 Kansas got away from upset-minded Princeton 76-57 on Saturday in Lawrence, Kan.
Tre White added 18 points and eight rebounds and Melvin Council Jr. contributed eight points and six assists for the Jayhawks, who used a 25-6 run in the second half to turn a one-point game into a 20-point cushion.
Kansas (3-1) played without star freshman Darryn Peterson for the second straight game. Peterson was held out as a precaution due to hamstring tightness.
Dalen Davis netted 21 points, Jack Stanton scored 15 and Jackson Hicke had 12 for Princeton (2-2). Stanton and Hicke made four 3-pointers apiece.
The Tigers were neck and neck with the Jayhawks through the first 26 minutes thanks to 3-point shooting and opportunistic play. Princeton made 10 triples to Kansas’ five on the day and turned 14 Jayhawk turnovers into 17 points.
Princeton’s first three baskets were 3-pointers, two by Hicke and one by Davis, and the Tigers’ largest lead was 18-13 midway through the first half.
Bidunga took over for the Jayhawks, scoring 13 points during the final four minutes before halftime. He threw down dunks on back-to-back possessions, the first on a pass lobbed up by Jayden Dawson, the next off a spin move beneath the basket.
He nearly had a third dunk with 32 seconds left but settled for a layup and foul. The three-point play gave Kansas a 37-29 halftime edge.
The Tigers had some fight left in them after the break. Stanton converted a four-point play and hit another 3-pointer 39 seconds later for a personal 7-0 run that cut the margin to 39-36. Davis brought Princeton within one on another triple at 14:23.
That’s when a 3-pointer from Bryson Tiller started an 11-point Kansas run, eventually giving the Jayhawks just their second double-digit lead of the day.
Elmarko Jackson’s fastbreak dunk highlighted another six-point spurt, and the margin finally reached 69-49 on White’s pair of free throws with 6:44 to play.
–Field Level Media
