More ugliness lies ahead for KU

OMAHA, Neb. | The party game is still two ugly victories away. If everything works out, then on the first Saturday in April, Kansas will get to play North Carolina in the Final Four. And that would be fun for about 50 different reasons. There’s basketball history. There’s Roy. There’s Dean. Both teams would run like mad and attack the basket and rain threes. Both teams would play free.

Trouble is, as everyone knows, the road to Oz is blocked by apple-throwing trees and flying monkeys and wicked witches. North Carolina still has to win three ugly games to get to that Final Four game. Saturday, Kansas got through its first headache — the Jayhawks beat Nevada-Las Vegas 75-56 in an ugly, violent, ferocious game that was actually close for a while into the second half.

Next, Kansas will have to beat the winner of today’s Cinderella story, Siena vs. Villanova, and there’s no doubt that neither of those teams will try to match talent-for-talent with the Jayhawks. No, they certainly will try to do some of what UNLV tried to do — slow things down, drive hard to the basket, force match-up problems, win an ugly game. People may think Kansas caught a break because Clemson and Vanderbilt were upset in the first round. But beating either of those teams will not be a lot of fun.

And should the Jayhawks win there, they will probably play Wisconsin or Georgetown, two more teams that will want to turn the game into a street fight.

This is the challenge of the NCAA Tournament — if you like to play fast, the other team wants to slow you up. If you like to play slow, the other team tries to speed up your heartbeat. If you show a little softness, the other team will batter you. If you like to play rough, the other team will go to the free-throw line.

That’s why the best team doesn’t necessarily win the tournament — the most adaptable team does. Kansas coach Bill Self understands this. “I think the tournament is so much about match-ups,” he says all the time, and he means that teams will do whatever they can to keep Kansas from playing its tempo, its rhythm, its style.

When Kansas is flowing, they are as fun to watch as any team in college basketball. The idea of every opponent is to stop the flow.

UNLV was able to do that on Saturday, at least for a while. Runnin’ Rebels coach Lon Kruger knows how to make a basketball game ugly, and his players played pressure defense, and they made sure that the Jayhawks felt uncomfortable. UNLV players drove hard to the basket all day and ended up shooting 34 free throws. The Rebels only allowed Kansas six fast-break points. You could see exactly what they were trying to do, and you could see how it might have worked. The Rebels were down five with 12 minutes to go.

In the end, the strategy did not work — did not come especially close to working — because this Kansas team adapted. The Jayhawks made 58 percent of their shots. Many of those were layups. They had trouble getting the ball inside to the big men, so the guards attacked the basket and Russell Robinson, Mario Chalmers and Sherron Collins combined for 40 of the team’s 75 points.

On the other side, they saw how aggressively UNLV was attacking, so they played hard on-the-ball defense and held UNLV to 27 percent shooting.

And Kansas won going away. Well, that’s one challenge down. And it was a good sign. It’s always interesting to see how an athletic and powerful team like Kansas adjusts when facing a gritty underdog. Thoroughbreds love to run. Power hitters like to hit fastballs. Great basketball teams, almost always, would rather play other great teams, would rather get out there on the floor and match talent for talent, power for power, speed for speed.

Saturday, though, the Jayhawks seemed fine with winning ugly.

“As a coach, I like these kinds of games,” Self said. “Because you feel you have more control because the possessions are longer.”

There’s no doubt that Self does like these games. When asked if his players liked playing this way, though, he smiled and shrugged. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if they like it or not. They have to win these games. That’s the only way to get where you really want to go in March.