KU coach Bill Self keeps his cool following third loss in four Big 12 road games
Admittedly disappointed, Bill Self wasn’t about to overreact to his Kansas Jayhawks’ 79-75 loss to Iowa State on Saturday at Hilton Coliseum in Ames.
“There have been some frustrating games that we’ve had this year. I’m not going to put this down as a frustrating game. It’s frustrating because we can’t guard the ball. That’s what’s frustrating,” Self, KU’s 21st-year coach, said after the Jayhawks’ record fell to 14-7 at Hilton in the Self era.
“I hope people understand there are not too many people that can win in this building this year against that team. We had a chance and just didn’t get it done,” Self added.
No. 23-ranked Iowa State in fact is 13-0 at home during the 2023-24 season.
The Cyclones on Saturday hit 14 of 30 3s to No. 7-ranked KU’s 7-of-20 from beyond the arc in improving to 16-4 overall and 5-2 in the Big 12. The Jayhawks fell to 16-4 overall and 4-3 in the conference.
KU is 1-3 on the road and 3-0 at home in conference action heading into Tuesday’s 8 p.m. home game against Oklahoma State.
“Our league is going to be like this. I mean geez, it’s a monster league,” Self said on the postgame show on the Jayhawk Radio Network. “I certainly don’t think we as a staff can be so frustrated that it carries over that the players feel like we are 16-4 and the sky is falling. That’s not it at all.”
He continued.
“That’s not how this works at all. We’ve just got to keep grinding, get better, take care of business and understand on one day we’ve shown we can beat anybody and on one day we’ve shown anybody can beat us,” Self added. “That’s the way it’s going to be with this team. We’ve got to prepare that way that we don’t let teams that we should take care of have big days like West Virginia did (in WVU’s 91-85 win over KU on Jan. 20). This was a hard game today. We actually guarded them the first half (in trailing 30-26 at the break) and didn’t do anything with them the second half.”
Senior Dajuan Harris, who scored nine points and dished seven assists against two turnovers, said it was a tough loss to take considering the Jayhawks trailed by 12 points with 11:44 left and cut the gap to two down the stretch.
“Everybody is frustrated with the loss, but you know, this is the Big 12. You’ve got to move on to the next one,” Harris said. “Every game is going to be tough. Every game is going to come down to the last shot. We’ve just got to get better at practice tomorrow, watch film and we’ve got to learn from it.”
Freshman guard Johnny Furphy — he had 15 points and six rebounds — said it is obvious KU in dropping three of four on the road, is getting other teams’ maximum effort.
“Going into every game we know what’s going to happen. We know teams are going to have their best games against us,” Furphy said. “It’s about how we respond in the future.”
“That’s what happens,” agreed Harris. “Every team does that against us. They get hot, but you’ve got to step up. The people we wanted to shoot the ball, they shot it. They just made it. Their players stepped up and made shots.”
One thing is for sure: KU at 4-3 in the league can’t afford a home loss to Oklahoma State (9-11, 1-6) on Tuesday.
“We’ll get better,” Self said.
Here are the Big 12 standings through Saturday games: Texas Tech (16-3, 5-1), Houston (18-2, 5-2), Iowa State (16-4, 5-2), Kansas (16-4, 4-3), TCU (15-5, 4-3), Kansas State (14-6, 4-3), Baylor (14-5, 3-3), BYU (15-5, 3-4), Oklahoma (15-5, 3-4), Texas (14-6, 3-4), Cincinnati (14-6, 3-4), UCF (12-7, 3-4), West Virginia (7-13, 2-5), Oklahoma State (9-11, 1-6).
This story was originally published January 28, 2024 at 10:51 AM.
