Kansas Jayhawks coach Bill Self chimes in on the Big 12 basketball race
With eight games left in the Big 12 men’s basketball regular season race, Kansas trails front-runners Houston, Baylor and Iowa State by one game in the loss column.
So what will it take for the Jayhawks (18-5, 6-4) to finish ahead of the Cougars (7-3), Bears (6-3) and Cyclones (6-3), as well as fellow four-loss teams TCU (5-4) and Texas Tech (5-4)?
Not to forget Oklahoma (5-5), Kansas State (5-5), Cincinnati (4-5), BYU (4-5), UCF (4-5), Texas (4-6), West Virginia (3-6) and Oklahoma State (2-8).
“I think obviously 13 (victories against five defeats) would get it outright and I think 12 maybe (against six losses) could get a tie. I think that 13 is more realistic,” KU coach Bill Self said Wednesday night on his weekly Hawk Talk radio show.
“We’d have to get really, really, really hot. I can’t see a couple teams in our league losing a couple more times unless we make life really hard on them. So we need to get hot,” Self repeated.
KU, 5-0 at home and 1-4 on the road, has road games remaining against Texas Tech (Feb. 12), Oklahoma (Feb. 17), Baylor (March 2) and Houston (March 9). The No. 4-ranked Jayhawks play No. 13 Baylor at 5 p.m., Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse and also have home games to play against Texas (Feb. 24), BYU (Feb. 27) and K-State (March 5).
Baylor will enter Saturday’s contest riding a three-game winning streak.
“We have an opportunity to play against the best offensive team in our league,” Self said of the Bears, who have an overall record of 17-5.
“They have a terrific team. They are loaded. They start two freshmen — one will be a high lottery pick (guard Ja’Kobe Walter). The other (center Yves Missi) will go in the top 20. That doesn’t count the experience they have around them that basically leads their team. It will take another great effort for us to have some fun on Saturday,” Self added.
He was referring to effort shown in last Saturday’s 78-65 home win over Houston.
KU fell to Kansas State 75-70 in overtime Monday in Manhattan.
“We were tired when the game started. The thing is K-State played Saturday, too (at Oklahoma State). We can’t use that as excuse, but I will say there was a lot of energy that went into that game Saturday,” Self said. “We practiced 20 minutes Sunday, had a brief shootaround (Monday). That’s the prep we had for Monday. Theirs would have been similar.
“I just don’t think this team is the team that can not be our best and have great success away from home. We have to be turned up all the time. I think when we have been (turned up) we’ve been good.”
He continued.
“When we haven’t been, which is certainly from an execution standpoint and mental-mistake standpoint, from a lot of those things, we can make mistakes that will put us in harm’s way,” Self said. “That’s what happened (Monday). There’s no guarantee we would have won the game positively, but I don’t think we gave it our best chance from an energy standpoint.”
Self noted that “our energy level on Saturday and Monday were night and day and hopefully from Monday to Saturday will be night and day as well.”
KU’s starters played between 38 and 43 minutes on Monday after playing between 33 and 37 minutes versus Houston.
The Jayhawks did not practice Tuesday and Wednesday, only watched film.
“That’s a lot (of minutes),” Self said of the last two games. “Some of our bodies probably don’t handle the pounding as well (as others). KJ’s (Adams) body can take a little more pounding than Juan (Harris) and Johnny’s (Furphy) body. Even KJ is playing too many minutes.”
Self said he needs to do a better job “letting the starters know where the finish line actually is.”
He discussed that theory with the team Wednesday during a film session.
“If you can imagine in any workload that you have, that your boss says, ‘OK, be here at 8 a.m. We are not going to tell you when you are going home. You are expected to work with the same effort every minute not knowing when you are going home,’’’ Self said, adding: “If the boss says, ‘You’ve got to be here at 8 and at 5 o’clock you are out of here, then you know the workload will be such. So I think sometimes players — when they don’t know where the finish line is — may say, ‘Gosh dang, I know I am supposed to go to the offensive glass every time, but gosh I also don’t know when I am coming out.’
“Even though all players want to be in there all the time ... Hunter (Dickinson) knowing, ‘Hey at this minute mark of the half I am going to come out for one minute or two minutes (could help him mentally and physically).’’’
Self noted that the first TV timeout Monday didn’t come until 10:58 remained in the half.
“The game started and we went nine minutes without a stop. We were wasted after the 9-minute mark,” Self said. “Guys were begging to come out after nine minutes. Hunter was asking to come out with 15 minutes left. We didn’t get a stoppage until 10:58. That was a long time, but both teams had to play that way. Those things happen.”
