Dajuan Harris foul trouble, Bobby Pettiford injury leave KU short-handed vs. Tennessee
Saddled with foul trouble, Kansas point guard Dajuan Harris sat on the bench the last six minutes of the first half and final nine minutes of the No. 3-ranked Jayhawks’ 64-50 loss to No. 22 Tennessee on Friday night. The Jayhawks fell in the championship game of the Battle 4 Atlantis at the Imperial Ballroom in the Atlantis resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas.
Having the junior floor general available just 18 minutes combined with an early-game injury to backup lead guard Bobby Pettiford made it difficult for the Jayhawks to avoid a blowout loss in which they trailed by as many as 18 points.
“Juan has to be in the game for us to have a good shot,” KU coach Bill Self said after the Jayhawks fell to 6-1 on the season. Tennessee improved to 5-1.
“I assume every call was a good call. No reason to think they weren’t. The officiating had nothing to do with anything tonight. Whether we think we got a good whistle or bad whistle or whatever, it was never close enough where that impacted anything. We just didn’t take care of business,” Self added.
Still, without Harris (he picked up his second foul 10 minutes into the game and fourth with 15:24 left) the Jayhawk offense, KU’s coach said, was “ugly. We were awful offensively.”
“We could make excuses. We lost Bobby and then Juan of all games decides to commit four really, really bad fouls. We didn’t have Juan the entire game. We didn’t have Bobby the entire game. Other guys (such as guard Joseph Yesufu who had 14 points) hung in there. We didn’t have anything we could really go to to try to get the game back except dribble drive. We shot too many jump shots.”
The bad news is Self said Pettiford will likely miss significant time with a hamstring strain.
“He’ll be out a while. I don’t know how long. Those (are things) you can’t mess with,” Self said. “Whether a week or two I have no idea. He won’t be available to us in the immediate future.”
KU forward Jalen Wilson was held in check by the Vols, who won despite committing 24 turnovers (17 the first half) to KU’s 16.
Wilson had 14 points on 3-of-15 shooting (1-of-5 from three and 7-of-8 from the line) with four rebounds in 39 minutes.
“We’d been riding him so hard. Tonight he just didn’t have it,” Self said, adding, “I’d go to war with him every day.”
He added: “Jalen has been such a good defensive rebounder for us and they did a good job of making sure Jalen couldn’t get to the glass, whether on offense or defense. That was a big key to their success and lack thereof for ours.”
Wilson noted that UT’s length made it “difficult” on the Jayhawks.
“But if we would’ve done a better job and got those big guys moving more, that could’ve given us a better chance at finishing at the rim,” Wilson stated.
Gradey Dick and Kevin McCullar had seven points apiece on combined 4-of-13 shooting (2-of-8 from three). Guard Santiago Vescovi hit five threes and scored 20 points. Zakai Ziegler hit three threes and had 14 points. UT hit 12 of 27 threes to KU’s 5 of 21. The Vols made 41.5% of their shots to KU’s 32.1%.
What it added up to was KU’s lowest scoring game since a 40-point outing in a 72-40 loss to Kentucky in the 2014 Champions Classic.
KU had 51 points against USC in a second-round NCAA Tournament loss in 2021.
“We didn’t do a good job preparing them for a physical, sound defensive team that will not let you score easy,” Self said .”They exposed us. We’ve got guys trying to drive gaps when gaps were not there. The thing I believe is we have to be a team that is not individuals. We were nothing close to becoming a team tonight.
“Guys having their own agendas is not the right term,” he added. “It’s not anything done on purpose. We didn’t share it, didn’t drive it. We had a tired team.”
Self also noted that Yesufu, who had the most points he’s had as a Jayhawk since arriving from Drake before last season, “did a nice job. Joe did some good things,” albeit in a loss.
Eventually, Self continued, it was going to happen.
“We weren’t going to run the table,” Self said of his message to the team. “Young kids, ... it’s a learning experience.”
KU will meet Texas Southern at 7 p.m. Monday at Allen Fieldhouse.
