Bill Self praises ‘exhausted’ KU basketball players for hanging on to beat BYU
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Bill Self praised exhausted KU starters for holding a 90-82 win over BYU.
- KU played four players 35+ minutes amid cramps and limited bench depth Saturday.
- Melvin Council hit a late jumper; Bryson Tiller led KU with 21 points.
Bill Self kept his message simple, exceedingly direct, in the huddle as his weary Kansas Jayhawks saw their game-high lead of 21 points whittled to four with 1 minute, 11 seconds left in No. 14-ranked KU’s exhausting 90-82 victory over No. 13 BYU on Saturday afternoon at Allen Fieldhouse.
“’You’re not tired. Tough it up.’ They’re kids,” Self, KU’s 23rd-year head coach, said, asked for his words of wisdom as he exited the interview room. KU used a Melvin Council-led 8-2 run to up that 82-78 advantage to a comfy 10 points (90-80) with 8 seconds to play.
KU had led by as many as 21 points at the final TV timeout of the first half, 20 points at halftime and 11 with 4:03 to play.
Self spoke a lot postgame about his KU team’s fatigue. The Jayhawks were down to basically five players the final 20 minutes because of the recurring cramps issue that limited Darryn Peterson to 3 minutes, 14 seconds of play in the second half and what’s believed to be a knee bruise that benched Elmarko Jackson the entire second half.
KU rode freshman guard Peterson’s 18-point performance (in 17 minutes) the first half to a 53-33 halftime lead over the Cougars (17-4, 5-3). KU improved to 16-5, 6-2 with Saturday’s victory.
“We were exhausted. We were exhausted on both ends. That’s as tired as I’ve seen Flory (Bidunga, 16 points, six rebounds, two blocks, four assists, 33 minutes with defensive assignment on AJ Dybantsa), Melvin (Council, 15 points, six assists, six rebounds, 37 minutes) and ‘Mari (McDowell, two 3’s, eight points, 26 minutes),” Self said.
“I mean, they were exhausted. There was so much energy the first half. It is almost like you run on adrenaline so long, and then the adrenaline ran out and switched jerseys, and we were a tired team, just trying to get to the finish line.
“We had no depth,” Self maintained. “But if you look at the stats they (Cougars) played three guys 35-plus and we played four guys 35-plus. So I give them credit. But it just felt different. I thought we expended so much energy the first half that we were definitely a different team energy wise.”
Council, KU’s senior transfer from St. Bonaventure, had one of the best plays of the entire game, certainly one of the most crucial in crunch time.
Taking over with Bryson Tiller (21 points, including 3 of 5 from 3) as KU’s biggest offensive threat, Council hit a short jumper with 3 seconds left on the shot clock, giving KU an 84-78 lead with 52 seconds to play.
Asked if Council canning that shot was “the plan,” Self said sarcastically: “Yeah, what we got (was) an off-balance shot that happened to go in. No (it wasn’t the plan),” he added, “but it was the play for him to try to get downhill.
“But guys, we had nothing at the end. There was nothing left in the tank. We were just trying to get to the finish line. So we needed to have something good happen (up just four). That was obviously a great play. And then, you know, this seems minor, but Flory going 2-for-2, and Jamari going 2-for-2, those were the three biggest offensive plays there down the stretch.”
Bidunga hit two free throws with 4:03 left that gave KU an 11-point lead. McDowell’s two free throws with 47 seconds left upped a six-point lead to eight. Bidunga followed with a dunk with 26 seconds left to up the lead to eight.
Of his huge hoop with KU’s lead shrinking rapidly to four, Council said: “I just had to get a bucket. My teammates were looking for me. They trust me with the ball, last second shot clock. I just had to make it.”
Council, by the way, also took credit for freshman Tiller’s big game, telling the forward presumably before the game that he was “soft.”
“I mean, I’m going to be honest with you. The reason he played like that, I was in his ear. I can’t say what I said to him. I just called him ‘soft’ but in a different way,” Council said.
The Jayhawks were anything but soft early on as they erupted for 53 first-half points on 64.3% shooting several hours after hosting ESPN’s GameDay show. Former KU Jayhawk Paul Pierce led a group of 20 or so former KU players, including Thomas Robinson, Ryan Robertson, Eric Chenowith, Billy Thomas, Mario Little, Nick Collison and the Morris twins, seated behind the Jayhawk bench.
“I thought it was a great day. It was perfect,” Self said of the atmosphere around the school’s celebration of the 1,000th game in Allen Fieldhouse.
“I thought the GameDay was a great infomercial for our university and our athletic department. I thought it was great — well attended, a lot of energy. The crowd certainly was everything that GameDay said it would be and more. And then we played great for 20 minutes. That’s the best we played all year long. Then we just kind of had to piece it together to end it. But it was a great day, and I’m proud of our guys.”
KU will tangle with Texas Tech at 8 p.m. Monday in Lubbock. Self said early indications are Jackson and Peterson would be available for the contest.
This story was originally published January 31, 2026 at 7:48 PM.
