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Just seventeen days after knocking off the North Carolina Tar Heels by three points, the Kansas Jayhawks eked out another three-point win over one of the ACC's best on Tuesday night, as they defeated the Duke Blue Devils by the final score of 75-72 in Las Vegas. While there were storylines aplenty heading into this matchup between two of college basketball's most successful blue bloods, the big story coming out of the game has been the 2nd half ejection of Jayhawks All-American center Hunter Dickinson.
As seen in the video above, Dickinson was ejected after being hit with a flagrant 2 foul as a result of kicking Duke big man Maliq Brown in the face after the two went tumbling to the ground under the basket. The Jayhawks were leading by two at the time, and were able to maintain their lead in the ten-and-a-half minutes following Dickinson's ejection.
After the game, Kansas head coach Bill Self expressed some surprise that his center was ejected, but did note that the ejection may be the best thing for the Jayhawks in the long run.
“I thought the flagrant 2 may have been a little severe. I thought it was definitely a flagrant 1.” Bill Self said, per ESPN's Jeff Borzello. “The explanation was that it was intentional and his head went to the ground, which is probably accurate. But I didn't think it was enough to warrant that. But the bottom line is it did and it'll probably be the best thing to happen to us that it did because it'll teach him a good lesson and also it'll give some other kids some confidence.”
One of those players who may have gained some confidence in Dickinson's absence was freshman center Flory Bidunga, who played the remaining 10 minutes and 26 seconds of the game. Bidunga finished the game with 6 points and 8 rebounds, doing his best to make up for the production the Jayhawks lost from their star center who is averaging 16.7 points and 9.7 rebounds per game this season.
“It makes me happy that Flo got a chance to show the world what he can do,” Kansas senior forward KJ Adams Jr. said after the win. “It's amazing what he did out there, especially a freshman coming into that big environment, a huge game, and he did really good.”
The 6-0 Jayhawks will take the floor next when they host the 7-0 Furman Paladins at Allen Fieldhouse on Saturday night. After that, Kansas heads out for their first road game of the season when they face the Creighton Bluejays on December 4th.
