Xavier Henry... Who's That?
Kansas Freshman Xavier Henry came to Lawrence with high expectations. Henry started off his career with a bang scoring 27 points, while shooting 8-12 from the field including 5-8 from down town. The world thought they saw a star in the making. In his two highest scoring games of the season, he scored 31 and 27. Too bad he scored these impressive totals vs. Hofstra and La Salle respectively. Henry is shooting 43.6% from the field, 39.3% from the 3-point line and is averaging 13.2 points on the season. Henry's problem is that in his last 8 games that he has only scored in double digits twice. He is shooting a woeful 29.4% from the field and even worse 26.8% from deep over that 8 game stretch. Three games in a row Henry did not even get to the charity stripe even once. Since his scoring is down, so are his minutes. Is his NBA ready body (6'6" & 220 lbs) wearing down? Henry has 8 games left on the season before the Tournament. The Jayhwaks will need Henry to pick up his game to help Sherron Collins, Cole Aldrich and company keep their number 1 ranking. Even though Henry is the 2nd leading scorer on the team, he needs to figure out whatever he was doing early on in the season and start to score in a hurry. Without Henry scoring like he was early on in the season, the NCAA Tournament could be a scary time for Coach Bill Self and Kansas. Luckily, Kansas is an extremely deep team that features at least 10 men deep in the rotation. With Henry Struggling, Forward Marcus Morris has really picked up his game and helped keep Kansas #1.
By Steven Spector 2-7-10
