Here’s why Kansas Jayhawks, Bill Self didn’t foul up 3 in win vs. TCU Horned Frogs
On the game’s most significant possession, Bill Self turned the decision over to his players.
This was with 9.4 seconds left in Kansas’ 72-68 home victory over TCU, and Self — leading by three at the time — had a choice that nearly every basketball coach faces at some point.
Foul when up three? Or play defense?
It’s a moment where conventional wisdom and the numbers don’t seem to match up. While many college basketball analysts suggest fouling is the way to go, most studies say it’s about a coin-flip either way, with favored teams appearing to have a slight advantage when not fouling because it lessens the small potential risk of losing in regulation.
With less than 5 seconds remaining, Self said he prefers to foul. The 9.4-second mark, though, was a bit of an in-between situation, with Self holding some concerns about what might happen if his guys put TCU on the free-throw line too soon.
In this scenario, though, Self did what he said he’d tried before: He asked his players what they wanted to do.
Jalen Wilson spoke first, saying he wanted to guard. His teammates followed in the huddle by backing him up.
“Everybody said, ‘Don’t foul,’ because if we get stops like that, that just gives us more confidence on defense,” Harris said. “So that’s all it was.”
The plan was successful on this night. TCU’s Mike Miles tried to drive to the rim, but Harris rose to block his shot before Wilson cleared the rebound.
At game point, in other words, KU came through with the stop it needed.
“Juan guarded it perfectly,” Self said afterward.
There’s a bigger picture to this conversation, though, and at least an understanding from KU’s players of what their coach values most.
Self often talks about his desire to have teams that love to dig in defensively when the game is on the line. He’s spoken before about how his best teams would rather be up 1 late while giving the opponent the ball rather than down 1 with the ball themselves. The other team can’t win then if it doesn’t score, and Self appreciates rosters who view the game with that type of toughness mentality.
That blueprint, to be frank, is not how this particular KU squad usually succeeds. The Jayhawks are hard to guard offensively while limited on the other end. As a result, they often have to outscore their problems — much like Self’s teams in 2017 and 2018 — while realizing that reaching that offensive ceiling requires often giving up something when they don’t have the ball.
All that doesn’t suggest, though, that these Jayhawks need to surrender defensively.
Or also that they can’t try to perform like their coach demands defensively.
Harris said as KU’s players agreed with Wilson on the no-foul preference, they all seemingly understood the path they were selecting.
Self gave them an alternative to back their way into a win. KU’s players, though, wanted to earn it instead.
“He likes stuff like that. We know because he’s a defensive coach,” Harris said. “Stuff like that gets him going.”
It’s not worth getting too carried away, of course. KU got the stop when it needed one, but it was primarily thanks to an outstanding individual play by Harris. Not only that, TCU’s decision to shoot a 2 instead of a 3 seemed silly in the moment and remained just as second-guessable even after further consideration.
This wasn’t an overall stellar defensive effort for the Jayhawks either. TCU picked on KU’s ball-screen defense to create 36 points in the paint, and too often, the Jayhawks appeared to be in scramble mode while adjusting a step late in rotation to the Horned Frogs’ original actions.
Accomplishing any task, though, begins with the correct mindset. This KU team has mostly struggled defensively the last three games, but in a “Fake it till you make it” kind of way, its players still chose to trust each other and their defense during the game’s most crucial sequence.
“Stuff like that, stops like that, that encourages all of us to play defense even more in clutch situations like that,” Harris said. “So that’s all it was.”
So did KU prove something tonight by getting that late stop? Harris shook his head no; TCU got too many easy ones before that, he said, and a single play wasn’t enough to make up for that.
“That was just step one,” Harris said.
What comes next, then, is most important.
KU needs to examine what went wrong in film. The players need to hold each other accountable for defensive breakdowns. They need to come together more as a unit to improve in an area that’s been lacking.
Maybe Thursday’s a start. The Jayhawks haven’t always played like defense is their biggest priority, but they showed signs against TCU of comprehending what’s needed to get better.
It starts with an appreciation of the value of a stop.
And coming closer — as they did Thursday — toward embracing a worldview that their coach holds dear.
This story was originally published March 4, 2022 at 12:19 AM.
