With West Virginia point guard Kedrian Johnson back in the lineup, the Mountaineers pushed the third-ranked Kansas Jayhawks to the brink in a 76-74 slugfest on Saturday inside Allen Fieldhouse.
While KU was able to complete the season sweep, it certainly wasn’t as easy as the 76-62 victory over a Johnson-less WVU squad back on Jan. 7 in Morgantown. And the stark difference in the two matchups didn’t happen by accident, according to West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins.
“I’ve said this a whole bunch of times, but in my mind, he is the best point guard in the league,” Huggins said of Johnson. “When you are the best point guard in the best league in America, you are pretty damn good.”
Kansas fans will certainly scoff at the notion that Johnson (or really anyone) is a better point guard than Dajuan Harris Jr., particularly after what transpired on the court on Saturday.
Johnson finished with 15 points on 5-of-11 shooting and did not record a single assist on a day where WVU finished with nine as a team. He was forced into eight turnovers, which was two more than his previous career-high when he committed six turnovers against Texas last month.
Harris, on the other hand, controlled the game on both ends of the floor, until he suffered an injury late in the game. Harris was responsible for many of Johnson’s turnovers, recording a career-best six steals and forcing four turnovers within the first four minutes of the game.
Setting the tone, Harris recorded five steals in the first half alone. It marked the most steals in a half by a Jayhawk since Andrew Wiggins notched five steals in the second half against West Virginia in 2014. The six steals registered by Harris was the most since Marcus Garrett swiped it six times against West Virginia in 2019. That’s not just pretty good company by Kansas standards, that’s pretty good company period.
On the offensive end, the Mountaineers dared Harris to beat them, and he did. He scored 17 points on 7-of-9 shooting, including 2-of-3 from long range. Harris recorded his first dunk of the season on a transition opportunity. He also added six assists while committing just one turnover in 36 minutes of action.
“Dajuan was terrific, he did everything we needed him to do today and more,” KU’s Jalen Wilson said after the victory. “As far as how efficient he was on both ends of the floor, being the floor general that he is, he was everything we needed. Especially today with how quick their guards were.”
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Box score: Kansas 76, West Virginia 74
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If the best point guard in the league was being determined by Saturday’s matchup, it certainly seems like Harris has the better claim. Harris was labeled the MVP of the game on Ken Pomeroy’s site, his first such honor of the season.
For the season, Johnson has the edge in scoring with an average of 10.7 points per game compared to Harris’ average of 8.5 points per contest. Harris is up in assists (6.3) and steals (2), as Johnson is averaging 3.1 assists and 1.6 steals per outing.
Johnson is committing 2.3 turnovers while averaging 28.2 minutes per game. Harris is on the floor more (33.7 mpg) and making fewer mistakes in the process with an average of 1.9 turnovers per contest.
Opposing teams often come up with a game plan that forces Harris to be aggressive on the offensive end by playing a lot of drop coverage. Lately, Harris has made them pay with an average of 12.5 points per contest during KU’s current six-game win streak. He has 40 assists and just nine turnovers over that span, which includes a 32-3 assist-to-turnover ratio over the last four outings.
Fortunately for us, EvanMiya.com is an analytical website that quantifies a player’s impact on both ends of the floor with a metric called Bayesian Performance Rating (BPR). Harris’ BPR of 4.26 is the seventh-best mark in the entire league among all players, while Johnson is 30th with a BPR of 3.00. For what it is worth, Kansas has four players in the top seven in that category.
Now the truth is, neither Harris nor Johnson will likely be labeled the best point guard in the league when it is all said and done. Fair or not, TCU’s Mike Miles Jr. and Kansas State’s Markquis Nowell are the only Big 12 players on the latest Bob Cousy Award watch list, which is given to the best point guard in the country. Texas point guard Marcus Carr also is currently on KenPom’s All-Big 12 conference team along with Nowell.
But when comparing the two point guards who clashed in Lawrence on Saturday, Harris seems to have a better case to at least be in the conversation.
