It wasn't pretty, but Kansas basketball pulled out a five point win at home against Cincinnati basketball on Monday night. The Jayhawks looked sharp to start the game as they quickly got their lead into double digits, but the Bearcats made it an interesting game. The contest was all tied up heading into halftime, but Kansas ended up pulling away for a 74-69 win. The Jayhawks are now 16-3 on the season.

One major bright spot for Kansas basketball on Monday was the play of Johnny Furphy. Furphy led all scorers in the game as he finished with 23 points. He was 3-4 from deep and 7-8 from the field overall. He played a fantastic game for the Jayhawks, and head coach Bill Self is pleased with the way he is playing right now.

“He's really settled into the role and he's gotten us off to a good start all three games,” Bill Self said after the game, according to an article from 247 Sports. “I mean, that’s him more than anybody else has gotten off us off to good starts and and yeah, he played great. Offensively he's terrific and he's great and transition. He can really run and that's what two games in a row he's been our best rebounder, which is a bad sign for other guys. Without him on the boards, we would have been really handed to us today. So he's great. He was to me best player in the game.”

Johnny Furphy got out to a fast start for Kansas in the game, and he was able to stay hot and play consistently well throughout the contest. Self doesn't know if that will happen every time that Furphy steps on the court, but he surely hopes that it does.

“I think the sample size is too small,” Self said in regards to Furphy's consistent play. “Tonight he did [carry the momentum into the second half], tonight he made some plays in the second half without question. He does such a good job of offensive rebounding, but a lot of times it seems to me like he can just go up and score when he gets an offensive rebound. But at this point in time just secures possession and kind of plays conservatively. We need to have him be more aggressive and a guy that we play to and we look to score probably even more so than we have.”

Furphy has now been starting for three games for Kansas basketball, and he has been playing very well since he stepped into that role. Self was asked if he had been meeting expectations since he began starting, and Self certainly seems impressed, and he knows how important depth is to this team.

“Well, I think he’s a good player,” Self said. “We’ve known that all along. He took some time away from the team at Christmas and that probably put him in a situation where he wasn't quite starting as soon as what he would have been if he'd been here the whole time because he missed some stuff. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t expect him to average 17 and eight in his three starts. But we’re a different team, we’ll be a different team. Depth is important. I said this earlier, depth is important and all those things. It’s a heck of a lot more important now than it is in the postseason. In the postseason, you get 20-minute half times and the commercials are a minute longer. I mean, there's a lot more time to rest. Now Saturday, Monday, get on a plane, get back at four in the morning on some trips or whatever and then you play quick turnaround. This is when depth is more important and also, depth in the tournament is most important through foul troubles and injuries. If you don't have those, you can play guys 35 minutes in the NCAA Tournament. At least we could. Now it's it's more prevalent, it's more obvious and it's more apparent that we don't have the depth or the production off the bench. But now's when guys got to step up. We need guys to step up and play in a way that adds value when they're in the game because Hunt and Kevin are playing hurt. They're playing on bad wheels and all that stuff. And this needed to be a game where maybe we could take those guys out. Except Hunter took himself out by fouling.”

Kansas will need more performances from Johnny Furphy like the one they got on Monday night. He's scorching hot, and it will be interesting to see if he can keep up this high level of play. The Jayhawks are back in action on Saturday as they will hit the road to take on Iowa State in what should be a great matchup.