By Harry Allison
Christian Braun scored 30 points and No. 6 Kansas pulled away from Saint Joseph’s to win 94-72 in the Rocket Mortgage Fort Myers Tip-Off.
Braun made 10 of 13 shots, hit five 3-pointers and added nine rebounds.
Jack Forrest had 18 points for Saint Joseph’s (0-2). Ryan Daly and Dahmir Bishop added 14 for the Hawks.
”It’s great to be in this environment,” Saint Joseph’s coach Billy Lange said. ”We can learn from this. We came to win but, big picture, our guys learned how to compete at this level.
”We were down like 59-55 with 11 minutes left. We have to keep doing what we were doing.”
Trailing by eight at halftime, the Hawks scored the first 10 points of the second half to go up 46-44. Daly’s layup capped the run. Kansas went on a 21-6 run to put the game away.
Saint Joe’s surprised the Jayhawks by taking a 27-20 lead, but Kansas recovered, then went on an 11-0 burst to go up 39-30 and led 44-36 at halftime.
Fousseyni Drame had 19 points and eight rebounds as St. Peter’s defeated La Salle 62-51.
Daryl Banks III had 14 points for St. Peter’s (1-1). KC Ndefo added 11 points and seven rebounds and Matthew Lee had 10 assists.
Scott Spencer had 11 points for the Explorers (0-2). Jhamir Brickus added 10 points and Ayinde Hikim had six assists.
