<table> </table> OKLAHOMA CITY | Strange thing, but you couldn&#8217;t help but think that Kansas coach Bill Self got a bit of perverse satisfaction out of his team&#8217;s ghastly loss to Baylor in the Big 12 tournament Thursday. True, he might not sleep for four days. But that&#8217;s a whole other thing.</p><p>Self knows that the worst thing that can happen to this Jayhawks team is for these players to come to the conclusion that they are pretty good. That&#8217;s how the season began with some players believing that by just putting on the Kansas jersey, <em>voila</em>, they became a continuation of last year&#8217;s national championship team. Arizona and Michigan State soon opened their eyes. It looked like a long year.</p><p>Then, conference season began, and the team played with a new level of toughness. They played a lot better than anyone &#8212; Self included &#8212; expected. They went to Oklahoma and beat the Sooners (without Blake Griffin). They went home and annihilated Missouri. They moved into the top 10. &#8220;Hey,&#8221; they realized, &#8220;we&#8217;re good!&#8221;</p><p>They promptly went to Texas Tech and got crushed by 19.</p><p>A good lesson. Kansas came home, beat Texas, won the Big 12 conference championship and cut down the nets. Self told them to remember Texas Tech. He warned them that Thursday&#8217;s game against a Baylor team that finished 5-11 in the conference was a trap game.</p><p>The Jayhawks fell for it anyway. Baylor played inspired from the start. The Bears shot well, held their own on the boards, lulled Kansas to sleep with their zone. They built a 17-point lead early.</p><p>&#8220;I thought we really looked like a tired team today,&#8221; Self said. &#8220;There was no energy at all.&#8221;</p><p>Kansas &#8212; as has become a bit of a trademark &#8212; did come back. Tyshawn Taylor made a three-pointer as the half ended (another Kansas trademark this year) and cut the margin to four. The Jayhawks appeared ready to roll. Midway through the second half, Kansas&#8217; Markieff Morris hit a layup that gave Kansas a five-point lead.</p><p>Then Baylor got hot, and Kansas got comfortable again. The Jayhawks spent the rest of the game missing jumpers. Baylor pulled the upset 71-64. It&#8217;s a loss that may knock the Jayhawks to a No. 4 seed in the NCAA Tournament and, almost certainly, sends them to a site far away from Kansas City.</p><p>But &#8230; that doesn&#8217;t mean it was a devastating loss for Bill Self. No, he cannot stand to lose any game. But this loss expressed in cold hard numbers what he has been trying to get across all year: When the Jayhawks play without energy, when Sherron Collins forces bad shots and turns the ball over, when Cole Aldrich disappears into the fog of a zone defense, the Jayhawks are just not very good.</p><p>&#8220;Today is a reality check,&#8221; Self says. &#8220;First thing we are doing, we go back and we get to the hotel. And we go to school tomorrow, make all the players walk around class tomorrow with all the other students wondering, &#8216;Why are you back here already?&#8217;</p><p>&#8220;And then, we will practice as hard as we have ever practiced the next two days.&#8221;