Jayhawks shouldn’t feel ‘depressed’ after Texas sweeps Kansas with OT win, Self says
Bill Self doesn’t see an overtime loss at No. 14-ranked Texas as something that would devastate his No. 17-rated Kansas men’s basketball team.
“We don’t need to be depressed about this. We need to be (ticked) that we didn’t close, but we don’t need to be depressed,” Self, KU’s 18th-year coach, said after the Jayhawks squandered a 11-point halftime lead and ultimately fell to the Longhorns, 75-72, on Tuesday night at Erwin Center in Austin, Texas.
“I mean all we’ve got to do is come back and keep working and grinding and put ourselves in position to beat Baylor on Saturday.”
The Jayhawks, who led by two points, 72-70, when power forward David McCormack fouled out with 1:27 left in overtime — only to come up empty on two Ochai Agbaji misses, a Jalen Wilson turnover on a breakaway layup and a missed Wilson free throw — obviously are upset they failed to finish the team that blasted the Jayhawks by 25 points on Jan. 2 in Allen Fieldhouse.
And they certainly are displeased their five-game winning streak has disappeared.
Looking at the big picture, there’s not much else to fret over, Self said in a video call with reporters after the game.
“You are putting too big an emphasis in my opinion on a loss,” Self said in response to one reporter’s question about whether the Jayhawks (17-8, 11-6 Big 12) might be better equipped to recover from this loss than say, some earlier in the season.
“We played the No. 14 team in the country on the road. Obviously it’s going to be a hard game regardless and we played really well the first half and didn’t play as well the second half. They played really well the second half,” added Self, whose squad led, 43-32, after 20 minutes. The Jayhawks led by as many as 14 earlier in the initial half.
“The emphasis I’m going to put on this is we got better today. Even though we didn’t finish, we got better. And we should get confidence from that.”
Self outlined exactly what was lost on Tuesday in Austin.
“This game didn’t mean anything from winning the league standpoint and who gives a crap about the Big 12 seedings?” he said of the Big 12 Tournament.
“I mean because the Big 12 seedings are not going to be real (because of teams playing different numbers of games and not everybody playing the same teams).
“Would I love to finish second in our league? Yes I would. If we won that game we would have put ourselves in a position to finish second in our league, but we didn’t. When some teams are playing 14 (games), some are playing 18 and others are playing 16 and not everybody’s playing twice ... we knew going into the year that we were playing for a seed in the NCAA Tournament not the Big 12 Tournament. So, this is not anything that should alarm us or rattle us at all.”
Self said it’s obvious “we’re in a situation we’re in the NCAA Tournament. I’m confident about that. This could have been a seed line or two (improvement) for us if we got this one today.”
Self was pleased with a first half in which Agbaji scored 14 of his 17 points and Bryce Thompson scored all 11 of his points.
“Gosh we were turned up,” Self said of the coming out with great energy. “We just didn’t close it out. I shouldn’t say that. After the 14-minute mark (of second half) it was anyone’s game, but we certainly had our opportunities to close it out.”
Self was not happy with the rebound totals. Texas outboarded KU, 50-38. Freshman wing Wilson, who scored 16 points, led KU with 13 boards. McCormack had four boards and 12 points in 24 foul-plagued minutes.
“We’ve got to get our bigs playing big, that’s the bottom line,” Self said. “David has done a pretty good job with that offensively. We’re still not rebounding the ball. For him to get four rebounds, Mitch (Lightfoot, two boards, five minutes) didn’t play hardly any. But we’ve got to do better than that. Jalen Wilson can’t be our best rebounder each and every game. We got to have our big guys getting some.”
Self wasn’t pleased with McCormack’s fifth foul. The 6-10 junior was eliminated from the game after venturing out to foul point guard Matt Coleman, who made one of two free throws to cut the gap to 72-71 with 1:27 left. KU had taken the lead on a McCormack hook shot.
“I don’t know what he was thinking about trying to run up and guard Coleman. All we’ve got to do is channel him off, keep him on the side. We did a really bad job of ball-screen defense late,” Self said.
Texas scored its final five points on free throws. KU had its chances with the two Agbaji misses and the Wilson turnover down the stretch.
“Och had a great look at the top of the key. He also turned one down a little earlier when he drove in and shot an off-balance jumper. That’s not his game. He had a wide-open shot. C.B. (Christian Braun, who opened OT with a three and scored 10 points) had a wide-open shot too. Our shooters turned down shots. We couldn’t get much to go down.”
KU was 8 of 24 from three; the Longhorns 5 of 26. Texas hit 24 of 31 free throws to KU’s 12 of 21.
“The kids played hard. I’m proud of their effort. We played lights out the first half,” Self said.
The Longhorns (14-6, 8-5), who became just the second Big 12 team in the 18-year Self era to defeat KU twice in the same regular season (Oklahoma State won in Lawrence and Stillwater in 2017-18), were led by off guard Courtney Ramey, who had 15 points. Andrew Jones and Greg Brown had 13 points apiece. Coleman had 11 points, nine rebounds and five assists.
Texas will travel to Texas Tech on Saturday. The Jayhawks will return home to meet Baylor at 7 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse.
“Absolutely,” Self said asked if the team will respond positively to this defeat. “They will take tomorrow off by the rules anyway. If young kids can’t recover in 24 hours to get ready to play the No. 2 team in the country, there’s something wrong with our society or our team or whatever. This is easy. We are not going to be thinking about Texas after tomorrow. Come Thursday it’s focusing on Baylor. We won’t be thinking about Texas.”
This story was originally published February 23, 2021 at 10:46 PM.
