Kevin McCullar’s absence from NCAA Tournament latest blow to once-promising KU season
Back in October, Bill Self and his Kansas basketball program were liberated from an albatross that had loomed over them for well over five years — including the last four-plus under the specter of five alleged NCAA Level I violations.
Self might as well have floated into the media room at Allen Fieldhouse on the day the NCAA-appointed Independent Accountability Resolution Process (IARP) concluded KU had committed no Level I violations and, most notably, assessed the program merely a three-year probation during which Kansas would remain eligible for the NCAA Tournament.
“I am eager to move forward without this cloud hovering above our program,” he said that day.
Days later, Self’s mood seemed to morph from relief to release, perhaps tinged with pent-up anger, as he spoke at the Big 12 preseason media day at the T-Mobile Center.
When The Star’s Sam McDowell began to ask him about recruiting on the other side of the ruling, Self answered before the question was entirely formed and said, “Absolutely. Now it’s time to go for the throat. Absolutely.” A moment later, he used the term again in the broader context of KU’s future ambitions to seize the moment.
But all the promise of that sense of deliverance and fresh resolve, further certified by The Associated Press preseason No. 1 ranking and a handful of marquee victories weeks and weeks ago, has evaporated in the last few weeks.
And with the jarring news Tuesday that star guard Kevin McCullar won’t return after all from a bone bruise in his left knee, well, chances are it will fizzle out altogether on Thursday.
That’s when the fourth-seeded Jayhawks (22-10) take on 13th-seeded Samford (29-5) in an NCAA Tournament Midwest Regional opener at the Delta Center.
Considering Kansas had lost four of its last five, including the last two by 30 and 20 points as the team’s pilot light appeared to be flickering, and considering this matchup was looking awkward enough for KU to begin with given how Samford’s 3-point shooting circus is Kansas’ Kryptonite, the absence of McCullar is a brutal loss.
Maybe all the more so since the prospect of his return — along with fellow first-team All-Big 12 teammate Hunter Dickinson, who indeed will be back after suffering a dislocated shoulder in the regular-season finale — was anticipated both in terms of productivity and morale for a depleted team desperate for a reboot.
But if it’s there to be had, it’s going to have to come from out of the ranks of the other seven scholarship players KU has available after Self announced that McCullar won’t be back this season.
“Kevin says his knee pain has not subsided any, and it’s too bad for him to be able to contribute,” Self told reporters, including The Star’s Gary Bedore and Shreyas Laddha, outside KU’s hotel upon the team’s arrival on Tuesday evening.
Self later added, after “consultation with doctors and Kevin (about) where he is mentally and physically right now, it’s best for him to go ahead and shut it down. Unfortunately for us, and more so for him. But there was really no decision to be made because he can’t go.”
Since he can’t go, it’s hard to see KU going far at all … if even past Thursday.
There will be plenty else to the game, of course.
But Self has been obsessed over the disparity in 3-point production between KU and opponents for weeks, going as far as to pull out a notepad in his office and go through the numbers with me a few weeks ago, and … it just doesn’t get better.
“When you get outscored 15 to 30 points every game from beyond the arc,” he said the other day in Lawrence, countering that with traditional baskets is a steep ask.
The injuries, particularly to McCullar, have been a massive factor in KU’s decline in recent weeks.
But they also serve to amplify the real issue: Kansas is bereft of the depth it almost always has enjoyed under Self, who at times has taken to looking at an index card during games for the first time in his career to remind himself what combinations he can do what with.
Along with the injuries, Kansas hurt itself by recruiting troubled former Texas guard Arterio Morris, who was dismissed from the team in September after being arrested and charged with one count of rape.
Meanwhile, it also bears mention that this has been a particularly eventful and disconcerting few years for Self.
For all his exhilaration in October, the investigation and waiting extracted a toll on him.
So much so that it even became a major point of discussion with his father in his final days in 2022, when he told his son, “Whatever you do, get this behind you.”
Self told that story at Big 12 media day as he explained why he offered to sit out the 2022 NCAA Tournament as a point of negotiation to end the investigation. That team, of course, went on to win the national title.
But a year later Self did miss the Big 12 and NCAA Tournaments after he suddenly felt what he termed an “out of body-type” sensation that turned into sudden hospitalization and a heart-catheterization procedure.
When I spoke with him a few weeks ago about the impact of that episode on him, Self said it had helped him learn to let go of little things and be more patient — something you could see in his sideline demeanor during most games this season.
Self also endured another unspecified health issue last fall about which he declined to elaborate other than to say he’d lost 30 pounds from it.
All of which is to say … it’s been a lot to navigate.
Now, barring an improbable run, a Self-coached team will lose more than 10 games in a season for the first time since his debut season at Tulsa in 1997-1998.
That may or may not come Thursday.
Bad as it’s trending with this strange, trudging team, Self is a master motivator and tactician.
But it’s hard to imagine it going far this time around.
Because despite what seemed implied in October, Self and KU’s story now will be about the work ahead instead of what was finally put to rest.