Trey Kaufman-Renn Goes 7 for 8 as No. 17 Kansas Holds Middle Tennessee to 25 Percent in 89-45 Rout

Trey Kaufman-Renn missed one field goal all night, and it was the first one. After that opening layup rimmed out, the Purdue transfer made seven straight shots from the floor, No. 17 Kansas smothered every other thing Middle Tennessee tried, and the Jayhawks rolled to an 89-45 win on Friday night in front of 15,300 at Allen Fieldhouse.

Kaufman-Renn finished with 17 points on 7-of-8 shooting in 18 minutes, plus four rebounds, two assists and a block. Kansas moved to 2-0. Middle Tennessee, which opened its season with a 117-73 win over Fisk on Monday, fell to 1-1 and spent the night finding out how different Lawrence is from Murfreesboro. The Blue Raiders never led, shot 25 percent from the floor and trailed by as many as 50. According to ESPN's game data, Kansas held the lead for 97 percent of the game.

A Fast Start for the Purdue Transfer

Four days ago against Fordham, Kaufman-Renn came off the bench and scored nine. This time the fifth-year forward was in the starting five, and Bill Self ran the offense straight through the post from the opening minutes.

Melvin Council Jr. got Kansas on the board with an 8-foot floater at 18:51. Kaufman-Renn followed with a layup, and when Jarred Hall answered with a 3 to make it 4-3, that was as close as Middle Tennessee would get for the rest of the night. Kaufman-Renn scored again at the rim, Tyran Stokes made two free throws and Kansas was up 8-3.

Quintero Barnett's layup at 15:35 cut it to 8-5. Then Kaufman-Renn took over the next few possessions. A 7-foot hook made it 10-5. A 16-foot jumper off a Tre White feed made it 12-5. On the next trip, Kaufman-Renn found Council cutting for a layup, and Kansas had a 14-5 lead with 13:33 left in the half. The Big Ten import looked very comfortable in the Big 12.

The First Half Became a Wall

Kansas did not shoot the lights out early. What it did was refuse to give Middle Tennessee anything easy. Kaleb Siler hit a 9-footer to make it 14-7, and Keanu Dawes immediately answered with a 24-foot 3 off a Council assist. Christian Reeves dunked a Taylen Kinney pass at 10:21 for a 19-7 lead, and the Blue Raiders could not find a clean look for minutes at a time.

Jahvin Carter's pull-up jumper at 8:04 made it 20-10. Middle Tennessee scored four points the rest of the half. Kaufman-Renn made three free throws, Dawes threw down a dunk to make it 27-10, Dennis Parker Jr. hammered one home for a 29-12 lead, and White buried a 3 that made it 36-14, the halftime score.

Fourteen points in a half is a brutal number for any Division I team. Middle Tennessee got there with bad looks and worse luck. The Blue Raiders kept generating second chances, finishing with 18 offensive rebounds, but they could not convert them. Carter, the team's leading assist man on the night with four and zero turnovers, went 3 of 19 from the floor and 1 of 7 from deep. Eli Rice went 0 for 5. As a team, Middle Tennessee went 17 of 68 overall and 7 of 27 from 3-point range.

Turnovers Turned Into Points, Every Time

If the halfcourt defense set the tone, the transition game finished the job. Kansas forced 16 turnovers and turned them into 28 points. Middle Tennessee scored two points off Kansas' 12 giveaways. That 26-point gap alone was more than half the final margin.

The Jayhawks piled up seven steals and seven blocks. Council had three steals and three assists in 20 minutes without committing a turnover. Leroy Blyden Jr. also had three steals off the bench. Davion Adkins blocked two shots in 11 minutes. Kansas outscored Middle Tennessee 14-3 on the fast break and 48-16 in the paint.

The paint number tells you where this game was decided. Kansas shot 35 of 56, a scorching 63 percent, and much of that came within a few feet of the rim. Reeves went 5 of 5 for 10 points and five rebounds in 11 minutes. Parker went 3 of 5 for six points and grabbed seven rebounds, three of them on the offensive glass. Kaufman-Renn missed only that first layup.

The second half was more of the same, just louder. Parker added another big dunk to make it 73-32. When Jax Howard hit a 3 for the Blue Raiders late, it only cut the deficit to 85-39, and Kansas pushed the lead to 50 at 89-39 before Middle Tennessee scored the final six points.

Self Gets a Long Look at the Bench

A 44-point win in early November is valuable mostly for what the coach gets to see. Self played 15 Jayhawks, and 13 of them scored. The Kansas bench scored 46 points, which outscored Middle Tennessee's bench 46-19 and the entire Blue Raiders roster 46-45.

Luke Barnett made the most of garbage time, hitting 3 of 4 from deep for nine points in six minutes. Dawes was a quiet star again, with eight points and a game-high eight rebounds, all of them on the defensive end, four days after leading Kansas with nine boards against Fordham. Trent Perry had three points and two assists. Paul Mbiya added two points, and Adkins scored two to go with the blocks.

The starters barely broke a sweat. Stokes, the freshman who scored 15 in his Kansas debut against Fordham, had eight points, five rebounds and two assists in 21 minutes, with most of his production coming at the free throw line, where Stokes went 4 of 7. White, who scored 22 in the opener, had nine points on 3-of-7 shooting with two 3s. Kinney had three points and three assists.

The one real flaw was the free throw line. Kansas went 12 of 22, 55 percent, and that kind of number gets punished against better teams. The Jayhawks also committed 12 turnovers, with Blyden accounting for three of them. Those are the details Self will circle on the film, because the schedule is about to get very different.

What It Means

For Kansas, this was the cleanest performance of the young season. The Fordham opener had its sloppy stretches, a perimeter defense that gave up 13 3s and a game that stayed close into the second half. Friday's game had none of that. Middle Tennessee shot 26 percent from 3, never got its offense organized and spent most of the night watching Kansas run.

The bigger takeaway is Kaufman-Renn's role. Kansas has plenty of perimeter talent in White, Council, Stokes and Blyden, but the offense looked most dangerous when it ran through the post first. A big man who can score on the block, hit a 16-footer and find cutters is exactly what a team needs when the United Center is loud and the 3s stop falling. Kaufman-Renn and Stokes are both on the Naismith Trophy watch list, and on this night it was easy to see why the veteran belongs there.

For Middle Tennessee, the message is simpler. Nick McDevitt's team ran into a buzzsaw and still crashed the glass hard enough to grab 18 offensive rebounds. Hall was the bright spot, scoring 11 off the bench on 4-of-8 shooting with three 3s in 14 minutes. Marcus Whitlock Jr. and Carter each scored seven, and Siler added six. The Blue Raiders will need far better shot selection, and a lot more makes, once Conference USA play arrives.

Up Next

Kansas heads to Chicago for the Champions Classic and a matchup with No. 23 Kentucky on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at the United Center. The Wildcats also won on Friday, holding off James Madison 89-80 at Rupp Arena. After Chicago, the Jayhawks do not play another home game until Nov. 23 against Denver. Middle Tennessee returns home to face Evansville on Nov. 10.

This was the kind of game Kansas is supposed to win, and the Jayhawks won it the way good teams do: early, completely and without needing a single heroic shot. Kentucky will not hand them 28 points off turnovers. But if Kaufman-Renn keeps playing like this in the post, Kansas has a real answer for the nights when the jumpers do not fall. Read our recap of the Fordham opener for more on how this team started.

Sources: ESPN box score (opens in a new tab), ESPN team stats and play-by-play, Kansas Athletics box score (opens in a new tab), Kansas Athletics and Middle Tennessee Athletics schedules and releases. More men's college basketball coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: Kansas Athletics (file photo from Kansas' Nov. 2, 2026, home opener vs. Fordham).