Cindy Self asked her husband, Kansas coach Bill Self, a question likely on the minds of a lot of Kansas basketball fans after the Jayhawks were court-stormed after losses at both Creighton and Missouri in a five-day period.
“Of course it’s a novel idea to ask after,” Self, KU’s 22nd-year coach, said jokingly while speaking on Tuesday’s Hawk Talk radio show, “but she said, ‘Why did we play two games in a row during non-conference on the road?’”
The road has not been kind to KU of late.
Creighton stormed to an 11-point lead the first 9 1/2 minutes en route to a 76-63 victory over the Jayhawks last Wednesday night before 17,908 fans in Omaha, Nebraska. On Sunday, Missouri roared to an 18-point lead the first half in a 76-67 win over the Jayhawks before 15,061 spectators at Mizzou Arena.
“The Big East/Big 12 Challenge schedules the one (KU-Creighton) game. We don’t have any say with that,” Self said in answering Cindy’s question. “And this is the only time in the whole season — because you’ve got to play (nonconference games) in December — that these dates worked out. Sometimes that happens. But in all honesty those are just excuses. I mean, we we’ve got to be bigger and better than that.”
For that, the KU coach thinks the Jayhawks can learn a lesson from the nearby Kansas City Chiefs. More on that in a moment.
KU has played back-to-back nonconference road games just three times in the Self era. The Jayhawks lost to then-Pac 12 school Colorado 75-72 on Dec. 7, 2013, then dropped a 67-61 decision to Florida three days later on Dec. 10, 2013. KU lost at Villanova on Dec. 21, 2019, then, after breaking several days for the Christmas holiday, the Jayhawks beat Stanford on Dec. 29.
“We split those games,” Self said of the 2019 contests. “If you win the first one you’re obviously not happy with the split. But an 0-fer is not acceptable regardless.”
The losses to MU and CU dropped KU’s record from 7-0 to 7-2 and national ranking from No. 1 to 10.
“It’s been a crap week for all of us but hopefully we get an an opportunity to bounce back,” Self said. “I’m not going to make any excuses and very rarely do for poor play, but there certainly can be some valuable things that you learn from it and lessons that hopefully will give us a chance to win the war, not just the battle.”
Self added the CU and MU games “were more like conference games than what most nonconference games are. I mean, those two atmospheres were pretty good. We won’t play in anything much better than that.”
He also joked, “I really had no idea I had so many friends in Columbia, Missouri, that were waving to me, but just with one finger, it seemed like just the entire game. I mean, they kept trying to get my attention, and I’m like, ‘Gosh, these people are nice over here,’ but that’s the way it is.”
Self after watching film said the Jayhawks should be further along from a “technique standpoint and a scheme standpoint.” But he said the energy and “making sure the other team doesn’t play well” had more to do with it.
“You could look at it and say, ‘Well, they could do this,’ or ‘Hunt (Hunter Dickinson, senior center) needs more touches in this area,’ and we could do that,” Self said. “I don’t know that I agree with everything that everybody would say, but I know I would agree that there needs to be some massive improvement in those areas, at least based on the last two games.
“But what bothers me more than anything is you’re not always going to play well and you’ve still got to figure out a way to win when you don’t play well. And we didn’t approach the last week with the same vigor that I think our opponents approached playing us from a preparation standpoint.”
Perhaps KU’s two opponents wanted it more than the Jayhawks?
“I look at it as we played Duke and Carolina, and our energy level (in a pair of KU victories) was so high because we played Duke and Carolina,” Self said. “Creighton and Missouri played Kansas and their energy level was so high because they played Kansas. We didn’t match what they did against us like we did against others.”
“I asked Hunt this in our film session: I said, ‘Why in that Michigan State game (28 points, 12 boards) did you score at will? You had 28 and left six or eight out there on the board and had 14 rebounds,’ and he looked at me and honestly said in front everybody, ‘Because I hate Michigan State.’ Because he went to Michigan … that’s a very fair, honest assessment. That’s how the other two teams felt about us the last two games and we didn’t have the same vigor.”
But, Self added, “that is not an excuse, because good teams” are up for every game.
That’s where the comparison to the Kansas City Chiefs comes in.
Self highlighted that the Chiefs are able to regularly defeat teams that are fired up to play the back-to-back defending Super Bowl champs.
“That’s why the Chiefs are so good. Let’s just call it like it is,” Self said. “People are complaining about, ‘Well, they’ve been lucky and they’ve done this and they’ve done that.’ Well, just so you know, when you play an 8-4 Chargers team, it’s really not an 8-4 team. It’s probably equivalent of a 10-2 team or 11-1 team that gets so turned up and they may play with more energy that one game than they did the prior 12 games. So they’re actually playing better than an 8-4 record from an energy standpoint. And (the Chiefs) ... still figure out a way to win.
“... That’s what the best teams do. They figure it out, find a way. We have figured it out a couple of times this year already obviously, but we’ve also not figured it out in a big way this past week.”
KU will return home to meet North Carolina State on Saturday in a 2:15 p.m. tipoff at Allen Fieldhouse. After that, the Jayhawks, who will be in final exams, won’t play again until Dec. 22 at home versus Brown.