‘I’m a little relieved,’ Kansas Jayhawks coach Bill Self said. Why he should be
Bill Self leaned back in his chair, rotated his head to the right and turned a news conference question into a conversation with his players.
“I’m a little relieved,” he said. “I don’t know how you guys feel.”
Three chairs away, senior Ochai Agbaji scooted back to move into his coach’s line of vision before nodding emphatically.
“Very,” he replied.
Kansas men’s basketball is back in the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2018 after a 79-72 win Saturday against Creighton that felt more survival than mastery.
Relief feels about it, actually, especially when you consider the context — this isn’t the type of afternoon the Jayhawks have survived often. Like, say, their past three NCAA Tournaments.
The Jayhawks just won a game here at Dickies Arena that usually gets them beat this time of year. They overcame a component they have not been able to overcome for four years running.
A hot shooter.
A team full of them, as it happens.
Creighton, which had made 30.3% of its three-pointers through 34 games, remarkably shot the hell out of it for 20 minutes Saturday in Fort Worth. The Bluejays, seeded ninth in the Midwest Region, made 12 three-pointers, more than all but one game this season. They made 7 of their first 10 attempts and closed the first half 8 of 13 from deep.
The Jayhawks probably feel a stroke of luck to be advancing to Chicago to play Providence on Friday — hence the relief — and maybe they should for the awry pass that landed in the hands of Agbaji for a fast-break dunk to essentially seal the win.
But their greatest fortune comes from their own creation. At the best possible time, the Jayhawks have molded themselves into a team capable of side-stepping daggers their predecessors could not dodge.
“We’ve won some games in the NCAA Tournament that were a lot like this,” Self said, before emphasizing his real point, “and we’ve also lost some games that were a lot like this.”
In three straight tournaments.
KU has been bounced from the postseason in a variety of ways over the years, to be sure, but the losses typically feature some of the exact elements we saw play out Saturday. Some of the nightmare scenarios, really.
The three, for starters.
It often comes from an unexpected source, which makes it all the harder to swallow. It sure did Saturday. Creighton forward Arthur Kaluma, who had made only 25% of the 92 threes he had attempted this year, made four of them. The Jayhawks seemed just fine to let him shoot early and then scrambled to defend him like they were chasing Steph Curry behind the arc.
And didn’t it feel familiar? A year ago, USC made 11 of 18 attempts from deep to blow Kansas out of the gym. In 2019, Auburn made 13 threes in a second-round matchup. In 2018, Villanova made 18 of them. Those are the past three tournament exits.
Forgive KU if the beauty of the NCAA Tournament — if you shoot it well for 40 minutes, you can compete with anybody — is lost on them.
This is the recipe of their tournament upsets — an unexpected streaky shooter that didn’t show up in the scouting report, its own leading scorer running more cold than hot and a team presenting a defense KU had yet to see this year.
This game had it.
KU won it.
Those two sentences don’t usually fit. We can debate on what it means as KU advances to Chicago to play Providence, but it at least means something. The Jayhawks have more ways to win games than they did a year ago. Heck, more ways to win than they did a month ago.
Remy Martin is part of the solution rather than the headline of the what-if. The Jayhawks have figured out better-late-than-never that the defensive end of the court might be their best way to seal up close wins.
Someone other than Agbaji is capable of hitting the big shot. Agbaji has yet to get hot in postseason play. That used to be part of the requirement for KU to beat good teams. It feels more like a preferred option now. Martin carried the load before halftime. Christian Braun and Jalen Wilson added in key buckets down the stretch.
And they can apparently adjust on the fly, countering a Creighton strategy to sag in an extra defender on big man David McCormack.
It suddenly feels like we’re describing the components of a long run.
KU has already dodged what it feared most.