Kansas looks to avoid post-Kentucky power outage against Kansas State

When last seen coming off an emotionally draining home game that required additional time to complete, the Kansas men’s basketball team spun into a funk. Not immediately, but eventually.

The Jayhawks went 2-3 over the five-game stretch that followed their triple-overtime survival of Oklahoma in the battle of teams ranked first and second nationally.

Can KU’s post-Kentucky performance become a sequel? The first test is Wednesday when Kansas plays host to Kansas State.

Jayhawks coach Bill Self sees a difference.

“That was like playing an extra game,” Self said. “The Kentucky game didn’t quite feel like that.”

As for the aftermath, energy levels will be monitored. Playing with apparent low wattage became a theme in the games after Oklahoma.

Players said they talked about it among themselves, why they couldn’t seem to bring or carry a charge throughout an entire game. Efforts at West Virginia and Oklahoma State were lackluster, and so was the first half at home against Texas.

In all, Kansas dropped games at Morgantown, Stillwater and at Iowa State, along with victories at Texas Tech and over the Longhorns, between the Oklahoma and Kentucky triumphs.

“We have to get back out there and be aggressive and be a tougher team than we’ve been the past few games,” guard Wayne Selden said after the victory over the Wildcats.

It should help Kansas’ intensity that the first game after Kentucky is another breed of Wildcat. Kansas State hasn’t won in Lawrence in a decade, and KU has prevailed in 49 of the previous 54 meetings. But K-State has won two of the last three encounters.

“We’ll get a great effort from them,” Self said of Kansas State. “We know that. Our guys, they know the rivalry. We’ve got three guys that weren’t here last year, they’ll be educated.

“We know it’s a big game to people in the state and certainly to our fan base and their fan base.”

It also marks the start of renewing the conference schedule after the Big 12/SEC Challenge interlude. The seventh-ranked Jayhawks, 17-4 overall and 5-3 in Big 12 play, stand one game behind Oklahoma and West Virginia in the loss column. Baylor, Texas and Iowa State also have three league losses.

At stake: A 12th straight Big 12 championship for the Jayhawks.

The loss at unranked Oklahoma State, which is fighting to remain above .500 overall, is the blotch on Kansas’ record.

“We’re a game out (from) where we probably hoped we would have been going (back) into conference play,” Self said.

The Jayhawks haven’t completed the round-robin scheduling with any team. Among teams currently ranked, Kansas has home games remaining with West Virginia and Iowa State with away game against Oklahoma and Baylor.

“It does feel like kind of a reboot of the conference season to me,” Self said.

The trick will be to not suffer a power outage after the huge home victory as the Jayhawks did in the first half of league play.

“We’ve put ourselves in a situation where we have very little margin for error in the league race,” Self said. “I can’t imagine that everybody wouldn’t be amped up to be part of this on Wednesday.”

This story was originally published February 2, 2016 at 3:35 PM with the headline "Kansas looks to avoid post-Kentucky power outage against Kansas State."