KU’s Self after 84-62 win over IU: ‘This is the best we defended, I think, all year’
Kansas’ No. 8-ranked basketball team on successive Saturdays has knocked off the arch-rival Missouri Tigers by 28 points on the road and No. 14 Indiana by 22 at home.
Not a bad stretch of games for the Jayhawks, who on Saturday defeated the Hoosiers 84-62 at Allen Fieldhouse to improve to 10-1 while dropping IU to 8-3.
“I thought we played better today than we did against Missouri,” KU coach Bill Self said after the Jayhawks’ 12th straight victory in Allen Fieldhouse. KU and Indiana are 2-2 all-time at Allen.
“I thought our defense was the best it has been,” said Self, whose Jayhawks still trail IU 8-7 in the schools’ all-time series. “This is the best we defended I think all year.”
The Jayhawks, who led 42-20 with under three minutes left in the first half and 44-29 at halftime, held IU to 37.7% shooting. The Hoosiers turned it over 23 times because of an aggressive KU defense that came up with 17 steals.
Those 17 steals are the most since the Jayhawks had 18 against UMKC on Jan. 5, 2011. Freshman Gradey Dick (20 points, six rebounds) and senior Kevin McCullar (11 points, 11 boards) had five steals apiece against IU.
“I thought we played really well. I mean, I think we’re getting better,” Self said. “The last eight days, we performed at a pretty high level and I thought our activity defensively was terrific.
“Granted, their point guard (Xavier Johnson who played just nine minutes) got hurt, obviously and that definitely hurt them. But our activity level was good. It was kind of a strange rotation out of our traps and they made us pay a few times but I think the traps were more beneficial than what hurt us.”
The Jayhawks were not the only ones who came to Allen Fieldhouse to play defense Saturday.
IU preseason All-American Trayce Jackson-Davis, who scored 13 points and grabbed six rebounds, had nine blocked shots — the most blocks ever against a KU team. Mo Bamba of Texas, Jordan Bell of Oregon and Shane Battier of Duke had eight apiece against the Jayhawks.
“They just had a guy block every shot at the rim,” Self said. “I mean, we got the ball where we were going to go, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a player that I’ve coached against this quicker off his feet than Trayce is. I mean, you’re wide open and he blocks it from nowhere. But we executed. We shot it well except for J-Wil (Wilson — 11 points, 4-of-18 shooting, eight rebounds).”
KU’s Dajuan Harris dished 10 assists to go with 10 points for his first career double-double while Bobby Pettiford came off the bench to score 10 points with four assists.
KJ Adams had 11 points, while Zuby Ejiofor had eight points in 12 minutes.
“It didn’t help that we lost Xavier early on,” Indiana coach Mike Woodson said, “but at the end of the day, it’s next man up.”
KU outscored Indiana 50-24 on points in the paint. KU outrebounded the Hoosiers 35-32.
“We just didn’t compete,” Woodson said, “and that’s just kind of upsetting because this team — we were matched up from a statistical standpoint going into this game.
“We were a dead-even team, pretty much. And they came out and took it right to us and we didn’t respond.”
Indiana did cut the gap to 10 points (48-38) with 16:11 left to play, However Harris scored six points and McCullar four, and KU led 60-42 at the 11:34 mark.
“We just wanted to set the tempo early. We knew it was a game of runs,” McCullar said. “The second half, coming out, they kind of made their run.
“But Coach (Self) and all the leadership on the team, they just said, ‘It’s a long game.’ We had 20 minutes. We knew we had to pick it up and we made our run to finish it.”
KU will meet Harvard at 6 p.m., Thursday at Allen.
This story was originally published December 17, 2022 at 4:34 PM.
