KU basketball was ‘smacked in the mouth’ by UNC. How will the Jayhawks respond?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kansas lost 87-74 at North Carolina after a second-half collapse and rebound deficit.
- Coach Bill Self calls for tougher rebounding, defensive identity and daily growth.
- KU returns to Allen Fieldhouse to host Texas A&M–Corpus Christi, then Princeton.
The same Kansas basketball team that defeated No. 12 Louisville by eight points on the road during the exhibition season and Green Bay by 43 points in the regular-season opener at Allen Fieldhouse led No. 18 North Carolina by eight points at halftime of Friday’s battle.
The good vibes from such stellar play in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, quickly evaporated during the final 20 minutes, as North Carolina outscored KU 58-37 en route to a 87-74 victory.
“Obviously the UNC game was tough. It (stinks), but we had to get smacked in the mouth to see what that tastes like and not taste it again,” KU sophomore guard Elmarko Jackson said Monday.
He was speaking at a news conference held in advance of Tuesday’s nonconference contest against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (7 p.m., Allen Fieldhouse, ESPN+).
“Just be tougher,” Jackson said of what coach Bill Self has stressed at practice and in meetings since the squad’s first loss of the season — a loss that caused the Jayhawks to fall from No. 19 to No. 25 in the latest AP Poll. North Carolina moved from No. 25 to No. 18.
“We knew going in obviously that game was going to be a dogfight and we could have put more on the line. So just emphasizing that — get tougher and just play with more reckless abandonment,” Jackson added.
Jackson — he scored six points with three rebounds in 19 minutes at UNC — cited offensive rebounding as the culprit Friday. UNC, which did have a size advantage at several positions, outrebounded KU 39-27.
The Tar Heels had 15 offensive rebounds to KU’s seven.
“When you are that (undersized against a foe), you’ve got to be pretty scrappy and you have to play to your athleticism and fight a lot harder. I thought we played very soft when it came to rebounding the basketball and going after balls,” Self said.
“There are a lot of things that can be corrected that we’ve got to get better at. But to me, that’s probably as big a one as there was, because when you talk about rebounding, usually it’s technique, blocking out, doing this, doing that, and then there’s an element (of): ‘Just go get the ball.’ We didn’t have that. We didn’t play athletic at all with our bigs,” Self continued.
Sophomore forward Flory Bidunga had seven rebounds in 35 minutes. Nobody else on the team had more than three rebounds.
Self was asked how long it would take for the team to become a “good defensive team,” not one that could be blitzed for 58 points in a half.
“(You need to) have an identity and to what you’re saying, weeks,” Self stated. “Rebounding is part of that identity defensively. It’s not something that you just (say), ‘Hey, we’re going to work on defense today, and we’re going to be better tomorrow.’
“There are your building blocks daily and if you keep building enough blocks by a certain period of time, you’re going to be much improved and there’ll be a noticeable difference.”
Regarding defense in Friday’s double-digit loss, Self said: “I look at playing our man before he catches it. I look at our communication on switches. I look at our hedges when we’re not switching on ball screens. There are a lot of things that I thought were weak and soft, in large part because I think we got fatigued. I mean, we were tired.”
Carolina forwards Caleb Wilson and Henri Veesaar combined for 44 points, 11 rebounds.
“That was a game that when things turned in the second half and there’s 10 minutes left and we’re down six, there’s not that much gas left in the tank in many ways. We lost all momentum,” Self said. “We had some guys play some major minutes.”
Bidunga played 35 minutes, finishing with eight points and seven rebounds. Senior guard Melvin Council Jr., who missed nine of 11 shots, had six points, seven assists and two rebounds in 33 minutes. Freshman guard Darryn Peterson had 22 points in 28 minutes.
“Carolina plays at a pretty good pace, obviously,” Self said. “So I think that those things all go into it but … our stances on close outs ... are we allowing straight line drives? Are we sound the last 10 seconds of the shot clock and not bail them out?
“There are a lot of things that you can say, ‘Well, we’ll just get better at this,’ but you have to actually practice it. So I still think we’re weeks away from being where we hope to be. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be a lot better daily. Because I don’t know how you guys felt, but that start of the second half, they were great, but we didn’t guard them.”
Texas A&M-Corpus Christi enters Tuesday’s game 1-2 on the season after an 85-77 road loss to Tarleton State on Saturday. Corpus Christi also has lost at SMU (69-58) and won at home versus Trinity (83-56).
After Tuesday’s game, KU remains at home to meet Princeton on Saturday in a 1 p.m. tipoff.
