Translated to English, the nickname for the Turkey national basketball team is “Twelve Giant Men.” It’s a simple moniker, of course, and if you watched the first quarter of Kansas’ 66-57 victory over Turkey on Friday night in Gwangju, South Korea, it was a fitting name as well.
For the first 10 minutes of Kansas’ opener at the World University Games — which actually took place on Saturday afternoon in Korea — the Turkey men looked poised to dominate. They were bigger, and more physical and stroking threes from all over Dongkang Stadium.
The Giant Men, though, ran out of gas, and Kansas’ short-handed group of college players owned the final three quarters.