Kansas Jayhawks win the Big 12 basketball title. Their greatest challenge starts now
They are as flawed as the unanimous No. 1 team has been at the end of any college basketball season in recent memory. Their best player hits just 31% of his three-pointers and their most dominating one is often a liability more than three feet from the basket. They could really use a third scorer.
Is it crazy to believe this might all be part of Kansas basketball’s strengths?
We’ve seen Kansas teams with more talent than this one, and they usually lose early in the NCAA Tournament.
How often have we seen Kansas teams that play this hard, this cohesive, this stubborn and this close to their ceiling?
Kansas clinched a share of the Big 12 championship with a 75-66 victory over TCU on Senior Night, a win that came with Devon Dotson (the team’s best player) hitting three-pointers, a career-best 31 points by Udoka Azubuike, and bursts of overwhelming defense by Marcus Garrett.
The five starters and freshman Christian Braun played more than 95% of the minutes, and it’s easy to see why. Everyone knows their purpose. They are good as individuals, but better together. They don’t have much margin for error. They know that. They play accordingly. They defend like dogs.
In a season widely seen as lacking a clear favorite, KU is widely seen as the country’s best team and likely No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament. Not bad for a group not expected to have a player selected until late in the first round of the NBA Draft or early in the second.
“Of all the teams we’ve had here that won a Big 12 championship I can honestly say I’m more proud of this one than any other,” said coach Bill Self on the court in a celebration of the title and seniors.
There are two obvious ways this season could derail. In the quote above, Self half-referenced one of them.
He expanded on that thought in his postgame news conference, saying that part of the pride comes in winning the league in a year when Baylor was so good and that part of it was in winning through so much off-court drama.
Silvio De Sousa’s suspension for his role in the ugly fight against Kansas State on Jan. 21 ended on Wednesday, and Kansas’ response to the NCAA in the ongoing investigation of the program will be made public on Thursday.
“We’ve dealt with some stuff that’s been pretty well known publicly with basically very little fault to the guys,” Self said. “Obviously Silvio made a bad, bad error — a huge error — in judgment the one time, but other than that the guys have handled the distractions as if they’re not even distractions. And you know that can be taxing on a team mentally. But I think they’ve been great. I meant what I said.”
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Sign upThat remains a potential problem, even as Self is naturally downplaying it publicly. Much of the world does not pay attention to college basketball until this month, and Thursday’s response to the NCAA will provide a convenient jumping point for increased questions and scrutiny.
The second potential fatal flaw of this team is that it has put so much into getting to this point that it might not have as much left for the finish.
You could see flashes of that on Wednesday, actually. Azubuike was dominant — 31 points, 14 rebounds, five blocks — but afterward Self referenced some Senior Night adrenaline that helped. It’s easy to wonder what might happen without that. His ankle is still significantly swollen.
Garrett wasn’t as overwhelmingly dominant defensively as usual. There were moments his man got to the basket, without screens, without leverage.
Notably, Self said he considered resting Azubuike and Garrett for Saturday’s regular season finale at Texas Tech. He clarified that both are expected to play, but still. That the thought entered his mind is an indication of both where they are physically and how much is riding on this group staying close to its best.
It’s more than injuries, too. In each of the last two games KU has played long stretches of underwhelming ball. This type of thing is hard to explain but you know it when you see it — a steal missed by a half step, a layup that should’ve been finished, a three-pointer fired from a bad platform, a close out that’s too slow.
Kansas is finishing a terrific season. It lost its season opener to Duke, by two points. It lost again before Christmas, at Villanova, by one point. Then it lost on Jan. 11, to Baylor, a loss that it avenged on the road while hitting just 3 of 13 three-pointers and getting to the free throw line just 10 times in part of what is now a 15-game winning streak.
Again, remarkable. They will have a case as the NCAA Tournament’s top seed no matter what happens against Texas Tech and in next week’s Big 12 Tournament.
But Self and his players know how this works. Teams are remembered for what they do in this month’s elimination games. Kansas has shown itself to be the nation’s best team.
The next four weeks will be about whether it can continue to keep the drama outside, and whether the players have enough inside to maintain the precision that got them here.
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 11:32 PM.