KU’s worst-ever NCAA loss (by far), and an uncertain future for Jayhawks basketball
The last athletic department in the country that needed another embarrassment right now got one anyway.
Kansas has had a brutal go, with a football coach gone for sexual harassment allegations at a previous job and the athletic director gone a day after a disastrous attempt to blame his old friend, and if you’re reading this you don’t need me to go on.
The men’s basketball program is this university’s jewel, its most reliable source of pride and self-esteem, but what are the emotions when the team loses 85-51 to a lower-seeded football school in the NCAA Tournament’s round of 32?
You probably would’ve guessed this, but USC just gave KU (by far) its worst loss across 157 games over 49 NCAA Tournaments.
“To me, Kansas deserves better,” coach Bill Self said. “We didn’t perform.”
There is almost no way to write this without feeling like piling on, so we probably shouldn’t mention that the date of KU’s next men’s NCAA Tournament appearance will depend on the conclusion of the school’s major infractions case.
Sorry.
The shock was not in the loss, but in the degree. This wasn’t a fair fight. Kansas was slower, but also timid. Kansas missed shots, but also didn’t rebound.
If it was a video game, the Jayhawks would have rage-quit midway through the first half. If it was a pickup game, they would not be invited back.
Here’s a thing that is true: USC hit 11 of 18 three-pointers, which would be impressive even in warmups. But if you took away each of those shots, the Trojans still would’ve won by two.
The end is never happy without a trophy, and this Kansas team was never going to win that trophy. But did it have to go like this?
“They were obviously more prepared,” Self said. “They played better, coached better. We shot it miserably.”
With time, the memory of this team will balance. Like everyone else in college basketball, the Jayhawks navigated a season with constant challenges. KU played its way from not-that-far-from-the-bubble in early February to a No. 3 seed in March. The argument about which season is Self’s best coaching job has become trite, but this one will have an interesting case.
The end came when the other team had the generational talent (USC star Evan Mobley) that’s usually at Kansas.
But that balance is a long way off. In the moment, it’s the usual energy surrounding a KU tournament loss — criticism of Self, the players, the officials, everything.
Of all the wild twists of one of the weirdest college basketball seasons on record, the sight of Kansas being outmanned, outmuscled, outplayed and outcoached this severely is at least worth a mention. There was not a moment of this game when KU looked like the better team, or even appeared evenly matched.
That part about this team being well-coached may have had a few of you rolling your eyes, but it’s real.
Because what’s likelier: that Kansas forgot how to play basketball in the NCAA Tournament, or that Self’s voodoo and some specific talents from specific players (hello, Marcus Garrett and David McCormack) was smoke-and-mirrors that the old henchmen in the Big 12 couldn’t solve?
Normally, when Kansas loses an NCAA Tournament game we’re left dissecting the reasons all that talent couldn’t come together.
With this team, the autopsy will conclude that this team played closer to its ceiling than most but was simply limited by a lower ceiling than perhaps any of Self’s other 17 teams at Kansas.
This group was good for some positivity, and will be remembered for McCormack’s emergence and Garrett’s maturity and Ochai Agbaji’s skills. They won just two of seven across 30 days and they would not have been the first team to give up under those circumstances. Self has said he thought they were close.
This group responded with its best ball of the season, winning nine of 10 before being blown to bits by USC.
That’s worth something. KU tournament losses are usually about missed opportunities, but if you can get past the (shocking) margin, this one is more about a group that came close to maxing out over the last six weeks.
This KU team had specific strengths, but it also had specific weaknesses. It struggled to score against length and struggled against bigs who can shoot. That weakness provided some tense moments against Eastern Washington, and turned the USC game into a channel-flipper.
Asked afterward what KU can do to address those weaknesses, and others, Self mentioned recruiting. He wants his teams to be longer, bigger and more athletic.
Left unsaid is that KU’s incoming recruiting class is currently ranked No. 22 by Rivals, which would be the program’s lowest in years. KU needs more than recruits. It also needs a conclusion of the NCAA infractions case.
This story was originally published March 22, 2021 at 11:58 PM.