Kansas likes to boast that it has an unparalleled basketball history, and they have the goods to back it up. James Naismith, inventor of the game, was the school's first coach.
So it's nice that the Jayhawks also have a player who has been there from the beginning in Perry Ellis.
Twitter went on a Perry-Ellis-is-old joke rampage Thursday night while the Jayhawks were punishing indifferent Maryland into second-half submission, 79-63, in the South Regional semifinals. Because he looks mature enough to be the younger brother to Clyde Lovellette.
The 6-foot-8 senior – OK, more like senior citizen – has seemingly been in Lawrence since they cut the bottom out of the peach baskets. He's a four-year guy – OK, more of a 40-year guy – in an era of impermanence. He has started since the Danny Manning Era – OK, the Wilt Chamberlain Era – and been unspectacularly indispensible ever since.
Ellis has a personality that is interchangeable with his game. He makes few jaw-dropping plays. He utters no eyebrow-raising quotes. He is a perfectly pleasant young man whose quotes die in reporters' notebooks, because they're rarely interesting enough to publish.
But then you look at the stat sheet and see things like Thursday night: 27 points on 17 shots. How did that happen?
The old-school way. Of course. Like, the one-room schoolhouse old-school way.
Ellis and his well-rounded game is a near-perfect cog in Bill Self's offensive machine. Self has always championed inside-out basketball, and Ellis will post up inside and score with metronomic consistency. But Self also will occasionally – especially this year – diversify things by utilizing ball-screen action, and Ellis is a proficient pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop scorer as well.
That's how you become Kansas' leading scorer at 17.2 points per game. And that's how you become a top-10 scorer in Kansas' gilded history with 1,794 points – and counting. One flairless basket at a time.
The one thing Ellis hasn't put on his résumé is a Final Four – but now the Jayhawks are 40 minutes away. Chasing a national title and seeing through the entire college experience was a huge factor in him returning for a fourth (no, seriously) and final season in Lawrence.
On cue, he has shown a senior's sense of urgency. In March, Ellis' scoring average has jumped to 21.3 points per game, his shot attempts are up to 14 (from 10.9) and his free-throw attempts are up to six (from 4.2). His eyes are on the prize now.
"It's why he came back to school," Self said Thursday night. "He could have bolted last year and been probably a mid-second-round pick. But he comes from such a good family and he's rock-solid, and he couldn't hurt himself by coming back to school. And he has a chance to leave Kansas with a legacy that will allow him to be a hero there for a lifetime.
"When we got Perry, we knew he'd be good. I think he's done some things from an aggressive standpoint that's allowed him to be great."
That was the one thing Self and his staff had to drive home with Ellis when he arrived as a blue-chip recruit from Wichita: You're good enough to take over games. Go do it.
He did it against Maryland. The sequence that put the game out of reach for Kansas was a Perry power play.
The score was 50-43 early in the second half and the game had hit a lull. Nobody could make a shot, there were a flurry of turnovers, and the game was just sitting there waiting to be seized. So along came Ellis, auditioning for the part.
He grabbed an offensive rebound and was fouled, and made two free throws to make it 52-43. After a Melo Trimble 3-pointer and a few more possessions of disarray, Ellis restored order again with two free throws. Then he answered a pair of Rasheed Sulaimon free throws with a hook shot while being fouled, and made the free throw.
That made it 57-48. After a Maryland miss, Ellis cut off a screen from right wing to left, took a pass and feathered in an 18-foot jump shot. That made it nine straight Ellis points, and made the score 59-48, and the Terrapins never got closer than seven points the rest of the way.
"He's playing with a lot of confidence," Maryland coach Mark Turgeon said. "I didn't think he forced things tonight. We knew he was driving right, and we still couldn't stop it.
"Bill's done a nice job of getting it to where Perry can make plays. He made a lot of them. Then he got his jump shot going a little bit in the second half, too. He's a hard guard."
Hey, it's hard to guard a guy who knows every trick in the basketball book. Because Perry Ellis wrote the book. With a quill and ink. While playing for Old Man Naismith.
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