KU basketball coach Bill Self hears from one of his peers: ‘You are not guarding’
One of Bill Self’s peers from another school offered a blunt, straightforward, no-holds-barred observation to Kansas’ men’s basketball coach after watching the No, 6-ranked Jayhawks fall to Oklahoma State, 75-70, on Tuesday at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
“She told me … she said, ‘Bill I watched you guys play early in the season. You weren’t very good offensively, but you guarded. Now you are not guarding,’’’ Self said Thursday night on his weekly radio show.
“That’s coming from another coach. That’s actually kind of tough to hear. This coach has been a longtime Division I head coach at the highest level,” he added, not identifying the forthright person. “The fact is we’ve got to get back to guarding.”
The Cowboys (9-3, 3-3) piled up 46 points in the first 17:30, finally cooling off en route to a 46-35 halftime lead.
“I told the guys at the first TV time out, the second TV time out, ‘They are on pace for 125 (points).’ They ran by us like we were standing still. That’s embarrassing,” Self said.
Self obviously is hoping for a better defensive effort Saturday when his Jayhawks (10-3, 4-2) play host to Iowa State (2-7, 0-5) at 1 p.m. in Allen Fieldhouse. The game will be streamed live on ESPN+.
“They had the best player on floor by far,” Self said of freshman guard Cade Cunningham, who scored 14 points the first half and finished with 18 points. “We had guys have the opportunity to guard the guy who may be No. 1 pick in the draft. We didn’t take it as personal challenge a lot of times. He scored one basket on Marcus (Garrett) the whole game. Everybody else, we had such a hard time. It was frustrating. We are better than that. We have to get our guys to compete every possession in a way that this team has to in order to be successful.”
Self’s Jayhawks — in his 18 seasons at KU — have been known for playing intense man-to-man defense. On Tuesday, KU’s comeback from a 16-point deficit was generated by a specialty defense — the triangle and two.
“It (pride in defense) matters so much to us we had to play triangle and two to not get run out of the gym, because that’s what could have possibly happened,” Self said in a sarcastic tone.
He’s hoping somebody besides senior point guard Garrett vies for the role of defensive stopper as early as Saturday’s game against ISU. KU, which has already dropped one home game (to Texas) and one on the road in league play, can’t afford another loss on its home court heading into a Big Monday game against Baylor in Waco, Texas.
“It has been for years if you look at the stat sheet after the game the players don’t turn to see how many they scored, they turn to see how many the guy they guarded got,” Self said. “Every team we’ve had that’s been good had a guy that was a stopper whether it be Brandon Rush, Travis Releford, Tyshawn Taylor playing Aaron Craft (of Ohio State and holding him to 11 points in 2012 Final Four game). Whether it be a Doke (Azubuike) or a Frank (Mason) ... Frank was so competitive. It’s also a team thing. Guys have to buy into if you want to be a great team. Everybody says they want to be a great team, Does everybody really want to be a great team?” Self asked
KU sophomore wing Christian Braun may have identified the problem on defense.
“We’ve got to take more pride getting on the floor first, getting 50-50 balls,” Braun said Friday. “I think those are things that can translate into winning. We do it in practice. I don’t know if we are trying to be too cool or casual during games. We can be that team that gets all the 50-50 balls doing the dirty stuff. We’ve got to get back to doing it in games,” Braun added.
Of Braun’s assertion the players may be trying to be “too cool,” Self said Friday: “I agree 50% because it’s not sometimes, it’s all the time. We haven’t had the mindset to lock people up. We have at times this year done that and done it well. The other night it felt like we were playing in sand so to speak,” Self added, cautioning his players that a speedy Iowa State team will use four or five guards at a time as did OSU.
As far as the big picture implications, Self conceded the Jayhawks are in for a battle regarding the Big 12 race. KU and Texas Tech are tied for third place at 4-2 behind 4-0 Baylor and 4-1 Texas. Baylor visits Tech on Saturday, then BU plays host to KU on Monday.
“If you are saying our back is against the wall to win the league, absolutely. It is, no question,” Self said. “If you are saying our back is against the wall to have a great season, absolutely not. It’s too long a season. There’s too many things going on in our world. Who knows what two weeks will bring?
“It is just hard to win league. Sometimes our people may take for granted how really hard it is to win league and how anything less than that can be disappointment. I don’t want our players to feel disappointment.
“We weren’t picked to win league going in this year. I think we can still win it. I would feel better if we had more margin for error. As good as our league is other teams aren’t going to lose a lot. We have to play better than we have to put ourselves in position to have a shot going in the last two or three weeks,” Self added.
This story was originally published January 15, 2021 at 1:37 PM with the headline "KU basketball coach Bill Self hears from one of his peers: ‘You are not guarding’."
