Bill Self, Kansas ‘embarrassed’ by BYU loss: ‘We need to get away from each other’
Kansas’ five-day mid-February road trip to Utah started with a seven-point loss to the Utah Utes on Saturday in Salt Lake City and ended with a 34-point setback — make that a 34-point annihilation — to a second unranked team on Tuesday night in Provo.
“I thought this would be a great opportunity to be a team-bonding situation, but it hasn’t been and this hasn’t been a good trip,” coach Bill Self told media members Tuesday after his soon-to-be-unranked No. 23-rated Jayhawks’ shocking 91-57 loss to the BYU Cougars.
“Certainly we’ve got some things we’ve got to work through, because we’re going backwards right now. And it needs to change, and it’s got to change on a dime. But give them credit. That’s the best anybody has played against us this year,” Self added of the Cougars, who led by 20 points at halftime en route to a historic rout.
The 34-point loss tied KU’s 34-point loss to USC in the 2021 NCAA Tournament for the largest margin of defeat in the Bill Self era. It also was the third-worst loss in school history. KU, which trailed by 38 points with 2 1/2 minutes to play on Tuesday at Marriott Center, lost to Nebraska by 40 points in 1900, 37 points to Kentucky in 1974 and 34 points to USC/BYU.
“It was awful. We’re all obviously embarrassed we didn’t bring our game tonight, but I’ll give them credit,” Self stated after the Cougars (18-8, 9-6) went 14-of-36 from 3 to KU’s 9-of-32 (28.1%) mark from beyond the arc.
“They could have beat anybody in the country tonight. They were great, but we didn’t put up any resistance,” Self added, noting, “we’re not that bad a basketball team, but certainly tonight we were a bad team.”
KU (17-9, 8-7) trailed 46-26 at halftime and showed so little resistance the final half that former KU/NBA center Cole Aldrich wrote on social media site X: “Put the managers in. Maybe they care.”
Senior center Hunter Dickinson, who had 12 points and 14 rebounds, said such a lopsided defeat will challenge the KU players to “stay together.
“Obviously we’re going to catch a lot of flack from fans, national media, rightfully so because we just lost by damn near 40 and, you know, it’s obviously not Kansas basketball. We’ve just got to stay together,” Dickinson said.
“Nobody’s going to feel bad for us now that’s NIL’s a thing, and players are getting paid and everything like that. Nobody’s going to feel bad for you. They are going to expect you to perform like a paid player. And so that’s what you’ve got to go out there and do. You have a job to do. We’re clearly going to do it. And so there’s going to be repercussions and a lot of flack for that. And rightfully so. We deserve that,” Dickinson continued.
Self was asked what’s ahead for KU heading into Saturday’s 3 p.m. home game versus Oklahoma State.
“We need to get away from each other. I’ll tell you that point blank,” Self said. “Guys need to get home — we should be back around 5 a.m. — and get away from us (coaches) for a day. Then let’s regroup on Thursday and start looking at some things that we can do to be a more connected and a more intangible-oriented team, because when we play with intangibles, that leads to playing into athleticism, which leads to playing into toughness, which leads to playing into connectivity.
“Right now, our intangibles are not where they need to be, which leads to us looking a step slow, which leads to being on an island, which leads to poor communication, which leads to a lot of different things.
“And certainly we’ve got to tighten that stuff up before we actually say, ‘Well, we’re guarding something wrong’ or ‘We’re not running something right,’” KU’s 22nd-year coach continued. “When you’re not connected it’s never going to look good. So we’ve got to tighten that up first.”
KU had just two players score in double figures. Dickinson’s 12 points came on chilly 5-of-12 shooting (1-of-4 from 3). David “Diggy” Coit had 11 points. He was 3-of-6 from 3, his teammates 6-of-26.
“Disappointment definitely” senior guard Coit said of the mood in the locker room. “We know it’s on us, the guys in the locker room. We can’t blame the coaches. They prepared us. We weren’t ready to play and didn’t have any fight. That’s where the disappointment is — a pride hit, an ego hit. Credit them. They did what they were supposed to do, but we weren’t ready to fight.”
Coit said each KU player “needs that time to self-reflect and look in the mirror. That’s the most important thing now. Outside of that, I think we need to talk about identity. We’ve got to find our identity, who we are. We were building on that. I felt we took two steps forward and 10 steps back.”
KU, the preseason No. 1 team in the country, has lost two in a row, three of four and five of eight.
Asked if the high altitude was a problem in Utah, Dickinson said: “I mean, altitude is a real thing, but I don’t think altitude led us to give up 14 3s. I think it was more us not being ready to play.”
Self said the bottom line on Tuesday’s lopsided loss was: “We didn’t guard. We didn’t rebound and obviously we didn’t score the ball very well, but even scoring the ball well, that wouldn’t have made a difference tonight if you don’t guard.”
Richie Saunders scored 22 points and Trevin Knell had 15 to pace four Cougars in double-figure scoring.
“They beat us off the bounce whenever they wanted to and, of course, they shot the ball ridiculously well, but that’s what they do, that’s how they play,” Self said. “So that was disappointing to be outworked, out-athletic-ed and outskilled tonight like we were.”
