KU Basketball: Landen Lucas Worth Wait for Jayhawks

The KU basketball team played their way into the Elite Eight of the 2016 NCAA Tournament Thursday night. Landen Lucas contributed in a big way to the 79-63 victory over the Maryland Terrapins.

Landen Lucas has scored 36 points and corraled 31 rebounds for the Kansas Jayhawks in three 2016 NCAA Tournament games thus far. This includes a double-double against Maryland in the Sweet Sixteen.

It is amazing to see how far he has come in recent months and how important he is to this KU basketball team and their recent success.

Lucas barely saw the floor for the Jayhawks as a redshirt freshman two seasons ago. He played 107 minutes all year, scoring just 34 points and pulling down 30 rebounds.

Last season, you could see improvement in the big man, but he wasn’t making a big impact on the floor for Kansas. While logging 15 minutes a contest, he averaged 3.5 points and 4.3 rebounds.

Even this year, in the first 20 games, Lucas played less than ten minutes seven times, including two games in which he never saw the floor. In those 20 games, which included all of the four Kansas losses, he averaged just 11.8 minutes a game. In one four-game stretch, he played a total of 17 minutes.

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He hasn’t logged less than 11 minutes since. Over the last 17 games, he’s averaged almost 22 minutes an outing and has logged 28 or more minutes five times, including a career-high 34 minutes against UConn in the round of 32.

The Kansas Jayhawks haven’t lost in those 17 games.

The change with this team, with Lucas starting and locked into more consistent playing time, has been amazing. Even though he isn’t much of a scorer – he’s averaging just 7.6 points a game in these last 17 games – he provides a presence.

He’s averaging 8.1 rebounds and has yanked down double-digit caroms six times. He sets strong picks and never tries to do too much. He seldom takes a shot outside of his comfort zone, and he kicks the ball out to the perimeter when necessary and isn’t forcing the action in the lane if it isn’ t open.

He has become a presence for Kansas, and an integral part of their success. He is not a  quick jumper, and his feet aren’t particularly nimble, but he’s developed into a solid defender. He’s not a prototypical rim protector, but he does have some games with multiple blocked shots.

He is the epitome of a blue collar player, doing the dirty stuff to keep his team moving forward. He’s not scared to dive on the floor, or bang the boards, or be physical underneath. He wears the hard hat, and it was something this team needed.

There had to be many fans who questioned if Lucas would ever be a major contributor to this team over this first three and a half years of campus. He redshirted his first season, was mired on the bench for much of his career, and played sporadically, even earlier this year.

He displayed some skills but little athletic ability. Along the way, though, Lucas developed that key ingredient that all players who may not be the most gifted must discover. He became fundamentally sound with the little things.

All successful teams must have this kind of player. Kansas has had plenty over the years – Greg Dreiling, Chris Piper, T.J. Pugh, Sasha Kaun, to name just a few – who became fundamentally sound by hard work and gaining a personal acceptance of how important it is.

His emergence has allowed star forward Perry Ellis to reach new heights after the senior struggled with inconsistencies earlier in the season.

Landen Lucas will never be a superstar or even a star. He will, however, be a player whose development and improvement will make his coaches, teammates, and fans very happy, indeed.

It is hard not to admire a player like Lucas who learns and accepts such a role, and grows into it until he excels.

It has taken some time for Lucas to become this sort of player, but the wait has been worth it. Watching him record a double-double in a Sweet Sixteen game, against a physically big, quality opponent like Maryland was sweet.

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It will be exciting to see what else Landen Lucas and this KU basketball team accomplishes in this tournament, and how Lucas’s senior year will play out next season. His work ethic and fundamentals have been a key to the Jayhawks’s success over the last half of the season.

It would be great if the Jayhawks can keep rolling for three more games in the 2016 NCAA Tournament! Rock Chalk, Jayhawk!