By SAM LANCE
A month ago, freshman Johnny Furphy was the second man off the Kansas bench. Now — he’s not only a starter — but one of the most impactful players for the No. 7-ranked Jayhawks game after game.
On Monday night, Furphy was a bonafide star for Kansas in a 74-69 win over Cincinnati to improve to 16-3 and 4-2 in the Big 12 conference. The Australia native finished with a game-high and career-high 23 points while only missing one shot from the field. Furphy also drained three 3-pointers and grabbed a team-high 11 rebounds for a double-double.
“He played great,” coach Bill Self said. “Offensively, he was terrific. And he’s great in transition and can really run… To me he’s the best player in the game.”
Kansas grabbed Furphy really late in the recruiting process with his commitment coming on August 2. The Australian first appeared on Self’s radar after an impressive performance at the NBA Academy Games in Atlanta, where Furphy averaged 14.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, 1.3 assists, and 1.8 steals per game.
Once Furphy arrived in Lawrence, Self discretely hinted at how talented he could be. Self was asked during a preseason press conference in October about who could possibly fill Kansas’ final starting spot, and the two names the reporter mentioned in the question were freshman guard Elmarko Jackson and senior transfer guard Nick Timberlake. But the first name out of Self’s mouth in his response was Furphy.
Even though the job went to Jackson for the first 15 games of the season and Furphy was relegated to the bench, it was still eye-opening for Furphy to even be mentioned in the conversation. And now, after a lackluster start to Jackson’s career — where he’s averaged just 5.4 points and shot 33.8% from the field as a starter — Self made a change to the starting lineup.
Furphy first appeared as Kansas’ fifth starter against Oklahoma on Jan. 13. In that game, Furphy scored seven points and grabbed three rebounds in just 19 minutes. In the three games since — the Australian has looked much more comfortable — tallying 15 points in a road win vs. Oklahoma, 13 points in a road loss to West Virginia and the electric Big Monday performance vs. Cincinnati.
Overall since becoming a Kansas starter, Furphy is averaging 14.5 points and 7.0 rebounds while shooting 19-of-34 from the field (55.8%) and 10-of-21 from 3-point range (47.6%).
“I was trying to tell him, ‘Johnny, you don’t really have to do to much,'” senior center Hunter Dickinson said. “If you just go in, you play your role, you play some defense, you make some shots, you could end up as a first round pick. I think he’s doing that out there. He’s making a lot of noise and we’ll see how long he lasts in Lawrence.”
This production from Furphy is much needed for a Kansas team that has been looking for a fifth-option all season. On Jan. 12, Evan Miya came out with rankings of every teams’ fifth-option. At the time, that was Elmarko Jackson for Kansas, and he was ranked the 64th best fifth-option in the country.
It’s safe to say Furphy has been and will be an upgrade from that, raising the ceiling of the preseason No. 1 team in America even higher.
The roll that Furphy has been on lately may be due to some visitors from Australia. His parents, Richard Furphy and Liza Alpers, flew from Melbourne to come see Furphy play. The two traveled to Morgantown first and then experienced Allen Fieldhouse on Monday. They fly back out to Australia on Wednesday.
“We’d love for them to delay their departure and stay a little longer because [Furphy] certainly has stood out the last two games with them watching,” Self said.
“I’m happy they got to experience a game like this where you have a packed house and good energy,” Furphy added. “I’m happy they got to see a game like that. I think they’ll remember this for a long time. I’ve told them so much about the energy in this building. You can’t really describe it.”
Furphy will look to build off the Cincinnati performance for the rest of the Big 12 conference slate, and the Jayhawks will certainly need him to stay aggressive and score to win the regular season title.
“He’s a good player,” Self said. “We’ve known that all along. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t expect him to average 17 and 8 in his [last] three starts. But we’re a different team. We’ll be a different team.”
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