KU hopes to cap undefeated home season vs. Baylor: ‘It’s going to mean a lot to us’
Kansas’ 3-6 road record had everything to do with the Jayhawks’ failure to win a 15th straight Big 12 regular-season title this season.
“That is the reason it happened,” KU forward Mitch Lightfoot said of the end of KU basketball’s 14-year run atop the league standings. “We have to address that. Throughout all our careers here we are going to have to win on the road, going to have to win in opposing environments. We’ve got to figure that out.”
The Jayhawks, who are an impressive 92-44 in conference road games in Bill Self’s 16 seasons at KU, can worry about returning to form in enemy gyms next winter.
For right now … there are no more true road games to play in 2018-19, just one final regular-season home contest before the postseason tournaments — Saturday’s 1 p.m. battle against Baylor at Allen Fieldhouse.
KU enters a perfect 15-0 in the fieldhouse this season and 8-0 in league home games.
“We are going to have great energy. We have great energy at home. We play one more home game, then don’t play another for a while. It’s going to mean a lot to us,” Lightfoot said.
The No. 13-ranked Jayhawks (22-8, 11-6) have won 19 consecutive games at Allen Fieldhouse, fourth-longest active homecourt winning streak in the country.
“I think that is one thing we can look at for motivation, to be able to run the table at home,” KU coach Self said. “We lost three at home last year and that was a Final Four team. To think in one year we are fourth-longest winning streak (in the country) at home is pretty good. Now, we’ve won 69 straight at home (in past). We’ve had some pretty good runs, but for this team to run the table would be great.”
To do so, KU needs to beat a Baylor team (19-11, 10-7) that is 5-5 in true road games this season and 4-4 on the road in Big 12 contests.
“I really hope that our crowd is there and juiced. It’d be very disappointing to us if it’s not because we’re not playing for a championship now (and) it doesn’t matter as much. Because it still matters and the season is not over,” Self said Wednesday on his weekly radio show.
KU was eliminated from league title contention following Tuesday’s loss at Oklahoma.
“The season hopefully is just beginning even though it’s a shorter window, but the third season is by far the most important one. We have every opportunity to still make it a special year,” Self said.
Baylor, which has wrapped up the No. 4 seed for next week’s Big 12 Tournament (KU is No. 3), is 0-15 all-time in the fieldhouse. The Bears fell to the Jayhawks 72-68 on Jan. 12 in Waco.
That was the somewhat strange game in which Baylor missed its first 15 shots and trailed by 16 points midway through the first half.
KU, which led by 23 points in the second half, went the last 6 1/2 minutes without a basket, had five turnovers down the stretch and saw a 23-point lead dip to four points with 19.6 seconds left.
KU hung on to win thanks to double-digit scorers Lagerald Vick (18 points), Dedric Lawson (17), Devon Dotson (14 points, five rebounds, five assists) and Ochai Agbaji (10 points). Jared Butler scored 14 points, Makai Mason 11 points and Mark Vital 10 points with nine boards.
“Mark Vital is the best offensive rebounder hands down in our league,” Self said of the 6-5 sophomore who averages 7.1 rebounds to go with 6.9 points per contest. “You can say Tristan Clark (is out with injury) but Gillespie (Freddie, a 6-8 junior averaging 5.5 points per game) has had a great year replacing him. Baylor has always been a good rebounding team historically. I do think they attack the ball about as well as anybody we play.”
Obviously KU would love to keep Baylor winless at Allen, wrap up a perfect season at home and also extend one of the wildest streaks in school history. KU has won 35 straight regular-season home finales dating to 1983-84. That’s back when Larry Brown coached the team.
“Baylor has been nipping at us pretty hard the last several games we’ve played them at home. They’ve always come ready to play,” Self said. Four of the last five meetings in Lawrence have been decided by 10 points or less with the last two by a combined eight points (73-68 on Feb. 1, 2017 and 70-67 last season).
“Scott (Drew) has done a great job. They had a tough loss last night (67-64 Wednesday to Oklahoma State) but he’s done a marvelous job considering all the crap they’ve dealt with too,” Self added of injuries. “But, yes, that would mean a lot for this team to run the table at home.”
