How KU basketball’s Joseph Yesufu played vs. Howard is what the Jayhawks need in the NCAA Tournament

DES MOINES, Iowa — When Kansas basketball went on a run to win the national championship last year, Joseph Yesufu played sparingly off the bench in the NCAA tournament.

Yesufu reached double-digit minutes just once that tournament, in the round of 64 win against Texas Southern. He didn’t play in the Sweet 16 against Providence or championship game against North Carolina. He never scored or took a shot.

But this year’s tournament, as 1-seed Kansas looks to defend that national championship, Yesufu’s role is much different. In a round of 64 matchup Thursday against 16-seed Howard that saw the Jayhawks cruise to a 96-68 win, he played more than he did in any NCAA tournament game last year and finished with eight points, two assists, a rebound and a steal. And should Kansas be in the best position possible to make another deep run, that kind of effort is what the Jayhawks will continue to need from him.

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“Energy and defense,” said Yesufu, a junior guard. “As long as I do those things, my offense is going to take care of itself.”

The sequence that stood out to Yesufu most from his play in the win against Howard illustrated that. On the defensive end, with a little less than four minutes left in the second half, he overcame the size advantage an opponent had on him inside and came away with a steal. That got Kansas out in transition, and on the other end, redshirt junior forward Jalen Wilson ended up hitting a 3-pointer about 10 seconds later to put the Jayhawks up 89-63.

One might think Yesufu would need to knock down a 3-pointer to settle into a game. That he hit the first 3-pointer he attempted against Howard, and then went on to shoot 3-for-5 from the field overall and 2-for-4 from behind the arc, certainly seems to indicate seeing that first shot go down doesn’t hurt. But according to Yesufu, energy plays like diving onto the court or making a steal like that are just as effective.

As redshirt senior guard Kevin McCullar Jr. tells it, Yesufu can be an instant spark on offense and a bulldog on defense. It’s what McCullar said the coaching staff emphasizes to Yesufu every time he gets a chance to play. It’s what they’ll need from him Saturday against 8-seed Arkansas in the round of 32.

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“(Yesufu) was much more aggressive, did a little bit better defensively, played with better energy,” assistant coach Norm Roberts said after the Howard win. “So, yeah, he had a good game.”

Matchups will always have the potential to dictate the extent to which someone like Yesufu is used off the bench, but over the course of the season no player outside of the regular starters has played as much as Yesufu. Yesufu, who’s also started three games, has scored more than anyone on the roster outside of the usual starting five. And those are among the trends for this Kansas team that don’t appear to set to change in this final chapter of the season.

Remember, Yesufu does have NCAA tournament experience from his time at Drake. Yesufu, who transferred to Kansas ahead of last season, is no stranger to being relied upon by a team on a stage like this and enjoying success. And he’s the only player available to Roberts and the rest of the coaching staff on the bench who could say that.

Jordan Guskey covers University of Kansas Athletics at The Topeka Capital-Journal. He is the National Sports Media Association’s sportswriter of the year for the state of Kansas for 2022. Contact him at jmguskey@gannett.com or on Twitter at @JordanGuskey.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Kansas needs Joseph Yesufu to maintain strong NCAA Tournament play