KU Jayhawks’ Self: ‘Adjustments’ to be minimal heading into round two vs. Iowa State
Bill Self doesn’t envision spending a lot of time working on the scouting report for Saturday’s Kansas-Iowa State men’s basketball game at Hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa.
Hours of prep on Xs and Os were completed prior to Thursday’s contest between the teams — the first of two games to be held between the Big 12 rivals in a three-day period.
“We’ll do the same thing, just like they will, too,” Self, KU’s 18th-year coach, said after the Jayhawks’ 97-64 victory over the Cyclones on Thursday night at Allen Fieldhouse.
The game was originally set for Jan. 16, but was postponed at that time because of COVID-19 protocols in ISU’s program. It was moved to Thursday, just two days ahead of Saturday’s 2 p.m. tipoff between the Jayhawks (14-7, 8-5) and Cyclones (2-13, 0-10) in Ames.
“I don’t think coaches make nearly as many adjustments as what maybe outside people think we do,” Self added.
He did concede in a postgame Zoom call with media members that there could be just a bit of fine-tuning in store for Saturday’s rematch, to be televised live on ABC.
“If you watch the game,” KU coach Self said of Thursday’s KU win, “they crushed us on one play. I mean we got crushed on it five times and they got six or nine points off of it. We’ve got to make an adjustment there or something,” Self added, not identifying the exact play.
“(Or) we may say, ‘Hey, they go under ball screens, so let’s set our ball screens lower, but I don’t think there will be many adjustments,” Self stressed.
The Jayhawks players, who will board a pair of buses about noon Friday for a 4-hour socially distanced trip to Ames, figure they’ll be napping or watching movies rather than discussing strategy on the ride.
“I think we just do exactly what we did tonight,” freshman forward Jalen Wilson said Thursday when asked how the Jayhawks can defeat the same foe in such a short period of time. “We have to focus on the defensive end first — defensive rebounding, making sure they’re not comfortable from the three-point line and then go from there.”
Iowa State hit 5 of 25 threes on Thursday to KU’s 12 of 26. A flip flop of those numbers could mean a much closer ballgame Saturday.
“I feel like we’ve been focusing a lot on our defense lately instead of just trying to score all the time. So us keeping the same mindset that we have knowing what we need to do to go down there and win on Saturday ... That’s just what we’ll do,” Wilson added after scoring 16 points and grabbing 11 rebounds Thursday.
KU, which had four players score in double figures, outrebounded the Cyclones 44-32.
Players such as Jalen Coleman-Lands (20 points, three boards) and Solomon Young (10 points, three boards) will likely be eager for the rematch at Hilton Coliseum, where KU is 5-4 in the last nine meetings.
“We have to turn right around and play the same team. We can enjoy this a little bit, but certainly, it’s going to be a lot harder winning up in Ames,” Self said .
Iowa State is allowing 1,400 fans to home games.
“The thing about it with this year, whether we’re playing in West Virginia or playing at TCU or Norman or Stillwater wherever … Texas Tech to me and Baylor were probably some of the only places that’s had atmosphere so far,” Self said.
“We’ve got to generate our own energy so that our guys hopefully are getting fairly accustomed to that. It certainly won’t be like Hilton Coliseum that we’ve seen many times when they welcomed us with open arms into the arena,” he added smiling.
Self explained why the Jayhawks are driving instead of flying to Ames.
“I don’t think it’s the temperature,” Self said of flying in frigid weather. “Temperature hopefully inside the bus will be fine but I don’t think that has anything to do with it. it’s more COVID related. We’ll take two buses up there.
“It’s also a lot more cost efficient. For us to fly to Ames to be COVID protocol safe, we’d have to fly a big plane and fly into Des Moines and fly out of Topeka and when you do all those things you’re not really saving that much time. It becomes probably a 3-hour trip as opposed to a 4-hour trip by bus so if we could fly out of Lawrence and fly right into Ames that’s different, but we wouldn’t be able to do that because the size of planes we have to take. Because of the social distancing that we have to do on the plane so it’s it’s more economical and much easier (to ride the bus).”
The Jayhawks will hold a shootaround in Ames on Friday night.
“We’re going to stay off our feet until we get there and then we’re going to go practice at Hilton, because it’s an early game so we won’t get a chance to shoot tomorrow. If we’re going to shoot in the building we need to do it tomorrow night. That’s the only time the building’s available.
“And if we practice here and we do it tomorrow night that means we’re on our feet twice so it makes sense to us just to be on our feet once,” Self said.
KU will meet Kansas State at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Bramlage Coliseum in Manhattan.
