KU unfazed by crowd at Mizzou: ‘The louder it got it seemed the better we played’
Kansas men’s basketball coach Bill Self had no idea how his No. 6-ranked Jayhawks would react in their first true road game of the 2022-23 season — Saturday’s 95-67 runaway victory at rival Missouri.
“In a perfect world it would be nice to kind of ease into those situations,” Self said prior to the game.
He was referring to perhaps playing somebody besides an undefeated rival during his team’s first scheduled road clash of the campaign. “That’s not the way the schedule is set up,” Self added.
KU (9-1) entered Saturday’s game against the Tigers (9-1) in Columbia with a 3-1 record in games contested outside Allen Fieldhouse — neutral-site wins over Duke, North Carolina State and Wisconsin and a loss to Tennessee.
“This is different. This is going right into the hornet’s nest and experiencing that right off the bat,” Self said.
As it turned out, the Jayhawks aced their first true road challenge.
“The crowd … that was about as juiced an atmosphere that we’ve walked into,” Self, now in his 20th season at KU, said of a black and gold-clad crowd of 15,061 that included some students who arrived early to hurl insults at the Jayhawks during pre-game warmups.
It was a crowd that roared throughout, never giving up until basically the last four minutes when it was obvious KU was not going to collapse after seeing a 26-point lead (with 17:40 left) dip to 15 with 7:54 to play.
“It wasn’t that way late,” Self added of crowd noise, “but they were certainly turned up and ready for us and I thought our guys responded. The louder it got it seemed the better we played.”
The Jayhawks stunned the MU fans early by grabbing leads of 12-6, 18-9, 24-12, 28-14 and 30-16 after 10 minutes. KU led 50-33 at halftime thanks in part to 15 points apiece from Gradey Dick and KJ Adams.
“That first 10 minutes. I don’t know I can remember any team I’ve coached executing better, making shots, executing extra passes, (and scoring off) layups, or wide open threes for a stretch,” Self said.
“We were so good. The guys executed the game plan really well. We defended pretty well. We rebounded better the second half (KU outboarded MU, 17-14 the final half, winning the board battle 35-33). Juan (Harris, nine assists, six points) and Gradey got us off to a great start.
“Jalen (Wilson, 24 points, 17 final half) was great the second half; Kevin (McCullar, 21 points, 14 second half) was great the second half. And if I had to pick a player of the game, KJ (19 points, six board, three assists) was terrific.”
It helped greatly that KU committed just 14 turnovers against Missouri’s press. Missouri turned it over 21 times. KU totaled 24 assists. The Tigers, who entered the game as the country’s leader in assists, had just eight.
“They pressed us the whole game. They picked us up fullcourt and we had very little problem with that,” former KU guard Ryan Robertson said, giving postgame analysis on the Jayhawk radio network.
“Dajuan had to take a time out in the middle of the second half because he got trapped but other that that they pressed us the whole game. We were able to break that pressure and get into a lot of our sets,” Robertson added. “I don’t think their defense caused us many problems. We scored 95 points so clearly it didn’t. We were able to get pretty much what we wanted. All in all it was a great offensive run by us.”
Of handling MU’s pressure, KU coach Self said: “We’ve got a decent cutting team. Teams that pressure, if you’ve got a decent cutting team sometimes it (press) plays to your advantage. We did a lot of good things. We were fortunate they obviously didn’t have a great day by any stretch. I like to think we had something to do with that.”
KU’s Adams said the Jayhawks practiced against the press all week.
“Coach Self prepared us well for that,” Adams said. “We were expecting that and were ready. We love getting out and running when they allow us to do that.”
KU’s nonconference schedule is far from over.
The Jayhawks will play host to Indiana at 11 a.m. Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse then meet Harvard there at 6 p.m. on Dec. 22. Down the line, KU will meet Kentucky on Jan. 28 at Rupp Arena in Lexington.
“Our schedule got a heck of a lot tougher in the last two weeks — Duke, Tennessee, Wisconsin, N.C. State, Seton Hall, at Missouri (which was) undefeated, Indiana now and Kentucky later. There’s still a lot to be determined on how successful our nonconference is,” Self said.
This story was originally published December 11, 2022 at 9:13 PM.
