These KU Jayhawks have a recent doppelgänger. And Bill Self needs to change that
There are times I can be as guilty of this as anyone.
When asked in the preseason why Kansas was considered a top-five team even after it had lost Devon Dotson and Udoka Azubuike, my response often would go something like this:
“Give Bill Self enough talented pieces, and he usually figures things out.”
And honestly, it’s not a bad place from which to start.
Self, a hall of fame coach, has done a masterful job of adapting in recent seasons.
In the last few years, KU has gone from playing two bigs all the time to creating a new four-guard offense that helped the team to a Final Four berth in 2018. Self went from a coach who earlier in his career never let his guys switch screens because it was a sign of weakness to one whose defensive philosophy is centered around those same types of switches while effectively taking opponents out of their typical sets.
No one in college basketball, it could easily be argued, has done a better job of adjusting scheme to personnel than Self over the course of the last five seasons.
Yet, for all that success, there has been a notable exception to that recently — and one that can’t be ignored following Texas’ blowout victory over Kansas on Saturday at Allen Fieldhouse.
Self and staff figure things out most of the time ... heck, almost all the time.
But the one instance things didn’t all come together — for KU’s standards at least — was back in 2018-19, when a midseason curveball knocked the Jayhawks so far off track they never fully recovered.
KU was a 4 seed that year, got blown out by Auburn in the Round of 32, and perhaps most notably ended Self’s 14-year run of consecutive Big 12 titles.
Here’s the harsh truth: Through 10 games, the 2020-21 Jayhawks appear to share a whole lot of similarities with that squad.
| KenPom rank | Adj. offense rank | Adj. defense rank | |
| 2018-19 | 17 | 27 | 17 |
| 2020-21 | 15 | 28 | 11 |
The history lesson: Udoka Azubuike went down in early January that year with a season-ending wrist injury. That left Dedric Lawson as KU’s primary 5-man, and while he was excellent offensively, his struggles defensively capped KU’s ceiling on that end while leaving the Jayhawks without their usual stream of easy baskets on offense.
Fast forward to now: In early January, David McCormack has been much worse than expectations, forcing Self at times to either Mitch Lightfoot (not a prototypical KU big) or Jalen Wilson at the 5. And with Wilson in ... it’s basically a repeat of what KU had with Lawson: an excellent offensive player likely to get all-conference honors who is limited defensively against other bigs and hasn’t been helped enough offensively by the cast around him.
The lack of a lockdown post defender (like Azubuike) also hurts KU in the margins defensively. A perfect example was in the second half against Texas, when guard Courtney Ramey drove off a fake ball screen from Jericho Sims.
Those two players — Ramey driving and Sims rolling — sucked in four different KU defenders. The Jayhawks were so worried about the potential of giving up a lob with an undersized lineup in a strategic sense that they left multiple shooters open on the perimeter ... and this time Brock Cunningham hit a three from the corner.
At some point Saturday, Self surely looked down the sideline and coveted what coach Shaka Smart could throw out there. Athletic, above-the-rim big men have typically been the guys that have won games in Allen Fieldhouse ... though usually for Self as opposed to the other team.
Self has admitted all along this isn’t his most athletic roster. And McCormack’s struggles early have only deepened the obvious shortage of frontcourt depth the Jayhawks faced when heading into the season five weeks ago.
There’s no time to focus on that now, though. Self and staff can’t think about what this team doesn’t have anymore; it has to work with what it does.
And the bottom line: There’s a way to make this rotation successful, even if it stretches Self further out of his comfort zone than ever before.
As noted in the stats above, both 2018-19 and this year’s team struggled most offensively. Self and his assistants have to figure out more effective ways to get easy baskets with their smaller lineups — KU ranked 238th nationally in field-goal percentage at the rim coming into the game — especially with the pressure the Jayhawks can put on other teams with perimeter shooters such as Ochai Agbaji, Jalen Wilson and Christian Braun on the floor.
This won’t be easy, but it can be accomplished. Iowa State had a long stretch of teams whose spaced things with shooters, which allowed both open drives for layups and back-cuts. Creighton — under Greg McDermott — is another example of a team that has made headlines for its threes ... yet also historically dices others at the rim with immaculate spacing and timing.
If you listen to Self closely, these are the types of challenges he loves as a coach. These problems — in-season, needing creativity and an immediate solution — are part of what make the profession fun, while also providing a sense of accomplishment if things come together late in a way no one would have imagined a few months ago.
KU’s advantage the rest of the way is that it has Self. He’s been adaptable. He’s been humble. He hasn’t been afraid to borrow schemes from Texas Tech or Baylor or the Celtics or Turkey if he feels like it will better his team.
At this point, this is the closest to a riddle he hasn’t solved. For whatever reason, 2018-19 spun out of control, with the challenges outweighing the solutions for a rare KU late-season fade.
Self has another shot at solving the puzzle this time, though in this instance, that can only give so much comfort to KU fans.
This dilemma — from the outside — appears just as challenging as the one before.
This story was originally published January 2, 2021 at 5:56 PM with the headline "These KU Jayhawks have a recent doppelgänger. And Bill Self needs to change that."
