Demanding KU coach praises team after West Virginia win: ‘Our defense was tremendous’

Kansas coach Bill Self has fretted about his team’s defense — and his squad’s lack of toughness — after various games this college basketball season.

He did not go there after Monday’s 71-66 victory at West Virginia, instead electing to offer praise regarding both areas.

“Our defense was tremendous,” Self said while acknowledging, “it’s one of the toughest wins we’ve had since we’ve been here (15 seasons).”

The Jayhawks (15-3, 5-1) mustered nine steals to “Press Virginia’s” five thefts.

“Over the course of time, mind-set won the game,” Self said. “We didn’t come here soft, to lay it up. Coach Roberts (Norm, KU’s big man coach) told them, ‘If you are going to go on him (inside presence Sagaba Konate) you better try to dunk it or he is going to block it. He (Roberts) was right on both counts. We definitely tried to dunk it and he tried to block it. There was a lot of nice competing.”

Konate had five blocks the first half as West Virginia (15-3, 4-2) built a 16-point lead that stood at 13 points at the break. He finished with five blocks for the game.

“Man, he’s a great player,” KU sophomore Mitch Lightfoot said of the 6-foot-8 sophomore from Mali, who scored 16 points with 10 rebounds and five blocks. “Obviously he has that knack for blocking shots.

“(Mohamed) Bamba (of Texas, who had eight blocks vs. KU) and him are just great shot blockers. For us, we decided to go at him. You’ve got to realize if you go at him it’s going to make him a little more tentative, get some fouls on him. Look at what we did at the end.”

Konate, who was whistled for four fouls, committed a goaltending call on a Lightfoot bucket that gave KU a 69-66 lead down the stretch.

“It was a battle. We grinded it out,” Lightfoot said. “What were we down, 16 (with 5:41 left in the first half)? Jayhawk Nation was with us, but a 16-point deficit is pretty significant. We had the ability to fight out of that.

“Coming in that locker room, cheering, hollering — hooting, hollering — that was a pretty cool experience,” Lightfoot added of a postgame celebration in the visitors’ locker room.

The Jayhawks are used to winning on the road — KU has won at Texas, TCU and West Virginia of the Big 12 and Nebraska of the Big Ten against no true road losses this season — but comebacks of this magnitude have been rare.

The come-from-behind win was KU’s largest since the Jayhawks erased a 16-point deficit and won at Texas Tech on Feb. 2, 1997. The Jayhawks’ 13-point halftime deficit erased was its largest since KU rallied from 14 points down at halftime and beat West Virginia on March 3, 2015, at Allen Fieldhouse.

“Devonté (Graham, 16 points), Svi (Mykhailiuk, 17 points), everybody was battling, competing,” Self said.

The Jayhawks committed nine turnovers in the first half; four in the second. West Virginia had 16 turnovers.

“They had us sped up,” Self said, “but only four or five possessions the whole game. Our turnovers … a lot were unforced. We had a couple of walks in the halfcourt where we were not being pressured.”

Senior guard Mykhailiuk said, “We were locked in. We kept grinding especially on the defensive end. We didn’t let them do anything easy. We pressured the ball. This shows what we can do if we play defense.”

As far as the mental aspect of the team, “Things were not going our way the first half. We kept a tight huddle, kept believing ourselves that we’d win it,” Mykhailiuk said. “We didn’t pay attention to all the mistakes, just thought about the next play, and got the win.”

He and Graham combined for 20 points in the final 7:53.

“I definitely think it’s a statement win,” Graham said. “A lot of people did not think we’d come here and get this win. We had not had one (at West Virginia) in five years. Like Coach was saying, ‘You can’t listen to those on the outside.’ Us 13 need to believe in each other, ourselves and the staff.”

KU will next meet Baylor at 5 p.m. Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.

Huggins’ take

Coach Bob Huggins wished his sixth-ranked Mountaineers could have given a full house at WVU Coliseum a victory over No. 10 KU.

“What disappoints me most is we work like crazy to get people interested and here we have a packed house and we don’t finish the job,” Huggins said as quoted by the WVU athletic department’s official website. “You’re going to miss shots, but we shouldn’t throw the ball away the way we did today.”

Huggins hasn’t been pleased with how the Mountaineers responded to last week’s ascent to No. 2 in the polls. West Virginia dropped four slots after last Saturday’s loss at Texas Tech.

“I told them in the practice facility, ‘Look up at the crow’s nest up there. What do you think about that? It’s pretty high, huh?’ ” he said of No. 2. “ ‘Well, it’s kind of where you are. You’re one rung from the top.’

“It’s not hard to climb up there, but, boy, that fall is hard. I told them, ‘That’s about what we’re getting ready to do. Our preparation wasn’t what it needed to be.’ ”

This story was originally published January 16, 2018 at 8:15 PM with the headline "Demanding KU coach praises team after West Virginia win: ‘Our defense was tremendous’."